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The New CCO podcast from Page tells stories that explore the evolution of the CCO. From culture change to digital transformation to corporate purpose, we focus on the issues that matter to today's communications leaders.
Page is the world’s premier membership organization for chief communications officers, PR agency CEOs and educators who seek to enrich the profession and improve corporate reputation management.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Elliot. Before we get to the episode, I just wanted to give a quick reminder to please hit the subscribe button. We don't publish on a regular schedule, and so subscribing will give you a heads up when there's a fresh episode to check out. And if you love the podcast as much as we love making it, leave us a rating and review, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Has always mattered. But it seems like today in a world where everyone is empowered to spread their views, it's more important than ever. Case in point, a billion dollar industry has materialized and the main commodity sells is influence on social media. This may feel like a new phenomenon, but finding trusted, influential voices and earning their advocacy has been a page in the comms playbook forever. The ability to influence is crucial for CCOs as they work to shape the actions and opinions of stakeholders. This is why our spring seminar this year is themed influence at work, the new rules to reach and persuade those who matter most.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
For me personally, influence
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Is
Speaker 2 (01:03):
As much about openness to influence as it is about the ability to influence other people. And it's that quality of intellectual curiosity, but rigor and a desire to change and grow that makes influence so interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Ethan McCarty, the chair of the 2023 Spring seminar, knows a thing or two about influence as the founder and CEO of Integral Ethan serves leaders of communications, hr, marketing and technology at organizations global and local alike. In light of the upcoming spring seminar, we spoke with Ethan to dive deeper into the key theme of influence. I'm Elliot Mizrahi, and this is the new c c o.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
The theme of this year's spring seminar is influence at work, and there's a bit that follows after that, but let me just say, influence at work is intentionally a triple entendre influence is simultaneously the work that we do, the communications marketing, public relations, like our profession, like the communications profession, a design point behind it, a raison detra for it is to, uh, generate influence, to wield influence, to understand who's influencing whom to shape, to shape a kind of operating environment, right? But it's also, you know, influence at work. Many of us, pretty much everyone is contending with a world where even in the workplace, which has been virtualized for a long time, but even in the workplace, we're trying to figure out like how do I as a leader influence these people? How do I become open to their influence in reasonable and rational and strategic ways?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
How do I wield influence at work? Uh, particularly in a world where teams are, you know, recombinant and self-directed and all of these wonderful things, right? But then the third dimension to that triple entendre is that influence is at work upon us and in new ways, in a lot of different ways too. You know, the, the media environment in which we all operate, the, uh, the environment of, of networks being opened or closed or accessible or not privileged, uh, equitable, like we are, we are under the influence as well of a changing environment as much as we are in an industry designed to shape it. And that's why, you know, I wanted to focus on influence. There's such a tight relationship between influence and transformation in the enterprise. I mean, pretty much every organization that I encounter is undergoing some kind of transformation, whether they like it or not, and whether they know it or not. Um, some are very explicit too, you know, like we are in this stage of this transformation and we think it's got a beginning, middle, and end and, and this kinda thing. Transformation is a familiar theme at page last year, at the 2022 page spring seminar. Many of the conversations centered around that topic to see what's changed. Since then. We checked in with last year's chair, Dr. Candace Steel flipping of Acuity Brands.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
First, I am really super excited about this topic and I believe it's really timely At the end of the day, you know, we need to get things done and long gone are the command and control type of days. And so we can all affect change from no matter where we sit. And so the idea that we can influence better is, um, really exciting to me so that we can shape the future that we want and connect the dots with the right narrative and the right message is, is is really relevant more than ever. Cuz again, as I mentioned, I think people's attentions and values are shifting. So how do you break through? And if we think about, you know, what's happened over the past three years, many of us don't have a really good roadmap in terms of where we're gonna go next because everything's different. So I'm excited about this particular conference because we're gonna bring our energy and understand what we need to do to break through to get all these important things we need to get done.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And what role does the C C O have in navigating this new world of transformation and influence?
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I would say the role of the C C O, at least in the last several organizations I've been a part of is, is helping the organization lead and manage through change. It's the only constant that we're gonna see for organizations that want to thrive. And I spend a lot of time thinking about how leaders can be more effective, better leaders, and allowing them to understand the rationale of what we're trying to do in terms of how we're trying to win. And, and then looking at research that helps us un tap into what, what's really going on. I, I read over the weekend an interesting paper that kind of came up in, um, maybe my LinkedIn feed from Axios hq. And they were looking at a, a report of, from a study they had done with lots of different companies and lots of different sectors, and they looked at what leaders care about and what they wanna talk about, values, vision, and what people want to hear .
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And it was different. And so, you know, finding and identifying what that gap is to solution around it and create long-term sustainable, um, initiatives and strategies that, um, can help connect the dots so that we can continue to win is where I spent a lot of my time. And I will say that, um, it's not as straightforward because I believe people's values have reset and reshifted over the last three years. So what would've motivated someone three years ago, pre pandemic is different and I believe people are looking at their relationships with their company is very different because a lot of people have moved, um, in the last three years. And so it's, it's a lot of listening. It's a lot of thinking about, um, what's gonna make sustainable value for leaders and associates so that we earn the right for people to come and do their best every day
Speaker 1 (07:39):
With the new opportunities that communicators have. New risks aren't equal. Abundance, Ethan dives into what some of those can look like.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Well, I think there's, I mean there's risk everywhere and, and it's, and we are, we are one of the levers that leaders at a societal and a business level can pull to mitigate the risk. I mean, it kind of depends on what risk we're talking about. I mean, like, I think one of the, one of the gravest risks that we face right now is that we will, y you know, collectively as a profession, uh, the we in that was our profession. Not all humans, but we'll, we'll exercise our influence in ways that are at cross purposes to, uh, the benefit and progress in of society. And, you know, that's one of the reasons why I believe so much in partici and participate so much. I mean, you see me do a lot of stuff with the page society is because I think it's such an important lever to pull in the world to say like, look, the way we communicate about things becomes the thing.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I mean, this is, and so if, if we communicate in times of great risk, uh, in ways that are self-serving, if we communicate in ways that consolidate power to the few, if we communicate in ways that, um, drives people apart, I mean, these are all effective by the way, strategies for, you know, these are, you know, you can do that and g and make gains, um, for your organization. We see that all the time. Or you can communicate in ways that, that bring people together that, um, and we can exercise our influence particularly, I mean like we have big brands in page, you know, with, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands of people and that, you know, that make the, you know, the evening news every day for good or for bad. And, you know, um, that, um, wielding that influence in ways that brings people together rather than drives 'em apart, I think is, is the big opportunity.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
And the inverse of it is the big risk. And, you know, turning over judgment to turning over your judgment to people who are, you know, small minded or the robots that they've programmed, um, is, is a huge risk. And a lot of, I mean, we, listen, you're, this is hardly breaking news, but we all know that a lot of the data that, um, these generative AI systems have been trained upon is not necessarily, you know, it's, it's not like it's, it's getting only input from, you know, ethicists, . You know, there's a lot of content from, from trolls and from despots and from whomever else that's in there, and selfish people, what have you. So there's a lot of opportunity in, um, conscious capitalism in stakeholder driven communications, in stakeholder driven management in the, um, e S G movement. And I'm not talking about, um, some woke key thi you know, like whatever I'm, I'm talking about literally saying, okay, is, are there, you know, are there models out there right now that we can, that we can observe that we can take advantage of that allow us to make some choices and direct, you know, direct our, you know, direct our choices towards what is a net positive, um, for the business that we represent?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
You know, like, I wanna make money. I'm an ardent capitalist, right? I want my clients to make a ton of money and there's no reason that they have to do that at the expense of, you know, the kind of global commons all the time or expense of people all the time. Like there's a, there's a whole world in which bounty is, is, you know, there's just abundant bounty and we can pursue that together. And so I think that's kind of a big risk. I know I sort of went off into a little bit of a funny spot there, but let me come back. There's, there's, there's something I want to add. And I mean, you guys are gonna have to edit the heck out of this, but there's a, uh, one of these like laws like Murphy's Law, uh, but it, there's, it's called Conway's Law.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
And Conway's Law is worth taking a look at. And it, it basically says that the way it was written by this guy named Melvin Conway in, um, in a periodical called Data Mads back in 1968. So he was a computer scientist and the essay is called How Do Committees Invent? I think that's, or that's roughly the title, but it's, I mean, he takes a look at the way communication systems change the way people behave and what they do. And, and I think it's, it's really important, um, to, to take a look at that because he, he said basically it, the way we communicate is reified in the product that we make. And so what that means is, and I think his example is like, look, if you, if you have a, if you have a a, a team that meets every four weeks and they're trying to design a filter and what ends up happening is they end up building a four stage filter cuz they're gonna break up into four groups with the four week cadence and whatever.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So the, the communications rhythms drive the output. And to me that's something that's like very, very exciting as a sort of principle to keep in mind as a communicator, the way we communicate actually affects, it constitutes what many organizations are. And in fact, there's a whole theory, professor Couchman, who has a theory called Constitutive Communications Theory. And if you look at that, you can see like the, the, the, the, an organization is not a vessel in which a bunch of communications happens. Actually, the organization comprises the communication. And so, you know, the way we communicate, it's not just, it's, it's not just something that's happening as a subsystem of the organization. It is, it constitutes the organization. And so this is both the risk and the opportunity because the way we communicate has incredible influence on the nature of reality for people, you know, and we see that in how privilege is exercised. We see that in how access is exercised. We see that in how status is exercised. A lot of these things don't exist in a material way until they're manifested through communication and then they have very material effects. And so I think that's both the risk and the opportunity and at the core of it is influence. You know, the way we communicate influences reality.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
If you enjoy today's episode of the new c o, be sure to check out our latest episodes and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave us a rating and a review. We want to hear what you think so that we can keep making this podcast more interesting and valuable to you. To find out more about what's happening at Page, please visit us@page.org. Special thanks to Rivet 360, our podcast partner. Without who support, we simply would not be able to bring this podcast to you. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time on the new cco.