The Overlooked Strategy For Boosting Comms Success: Why CEOs Need to Prioritize Proactivity Now
Is your company's communication strategy set up for failure or success? Here's what an AI-powered data analysis tells us.
TLDR
What the Data Says: An analysis of 2,643 press articles reveals that proactive communication efforts result in 99% positive sentiment, contrasting sharply with the 80% negative sentiment stemming from reactive approaches.Why This Matters: For CEOs, these findings underscore the critical importance of ensuring proactive communication in building and maintaining a positive public image—a cornerstone of long-term success.
Advice: CEOs feeling like their teams are getting caught flat-footed should consider adopting ‘proactivity’ as key metric and guiding principle for Comms team strategy.
Read on to learn more.
I often hear CEOs and boards say, 'My Comms team is on the back foot.' It’s a telltale sign they’re grappling with bigger reputation concerns — and it’s often why I get the call to step in as a strategic advisor.
Here’s why that nagging sense matters: Shifting your Comms team from reactive to proactive isn't just smart; it’s essential. In fact, it might be the single most critical priority for crafting a successful communications strategy. Let me show you one chart that explains exactly why:
Do you see that sea of orange bubbles at the top of the chart? That's a wave of positive sentiment, driven by a single factor: proactivity. In an analysis of 2,643 press articles about early and growth-stage tech companies in 2023, a striking 99% of the stories sparked by proactive efforts carried a positive sentiment. Conversely, 80% of pieces resulting from reactive measures fell into negative sentiment territory. Given the clear advantage this chart shows, it begs the crucial question: 'How can we help our Comms teams be as proactive as possible?’
“A whopping 99% of stories born from proactive efforts delivered positive sentiment. On the flip side, 80% of articles resulting from reactive efforts dipped into negative sentiment territory.“
What Do You Mean By Proactive?
I hesitated to include this section, worrying it might seem too obvious. However, it's crucial we share a common understanding.
In Communications, being proactive means taking initiative to advance your message with the world. This includes announcements, pitches, press releases, blog posts, and a wide range of content. These are all forms of "proactivity" in action that not only energize press coverage and spark social conversation but also engage stakeholders in a dynamic way, fostering a broader impact. In contrast, "reactivity" refers to discussions you'd rather avoid but find yourself addressing, often linked to the more controversial or challenging aspects of your business.
Being proactive typically ensures alignment with your strategy, following the path from Reputation Goal => Target Narrative => Key Message. On the other hand, reactivity typically forces you to allocate time and energy to topics that don't align with your objectives or, worse, to issues you're unprepared to address.
And before we go further, a quick word on process: how do I distinguish between proactive and reactive stories? Short answer, there are subtle but powerful poker tells in each article. It took a ton of hard work, but I've trained and baked this distinction into my AI-powered press analysis model. It’s a cornerstone of the 'proactivity always' philosophy that drives Valentine Advisors and something we track closely for clients.
Also, for those who feel like digging just a bit deeper, feel free to check out this footnote about the data itself.1
Why Does Sentiment Matter So Much?
In my view, sentiment is the paramount metric for shaping a business's reputation. While others are vitally important, sentiment is the one that impacts everything else. Consider this: As much as accumulating a vast number of impressions through feature-length articles in prestigious publications sounds rewarding, it’s actually counterproductive—if not outright damaging—to your reputation if the underlying sentiment is negative. Case in point, while nearly every CEO dreams of landing on the front page of The Wall Street Journal someday, it's the last place they'd want to be if that story casts them in a negative light. Bottom line: sentiment is “the straw that stirs the drink.”
Consistent positive sentiment creates a magnet for investments, a beacon for top-tier talent, and a glue that keeps stakeholders engaged. I often advise CEOs to invest in the most sophisticated sentiment measurement tools available and track it relentlessly. And there is abundant research to back up its importance2. More than just polishing image, positive sentiment builds a robust foundation that underpins long-term business growth and success.
“In my view, sentiment is the paramount metric for shaping a business's reputation. Consistent positive sentiment creates a magnet for investments, a beacon for top-tier talent, and glue that keeps stakeholders engaged."
Key Steps for CEOs to Jumpstart Proactive Communication
For CEOs ready to harness the sentiment advantage and shift into a more proactive communication approach, here's a roadmap to get started:
First, Build A Sophisticated Map of Your Reputation
I can’t believe I’m saying this in 2024, with such an incredible abundance of advanced analytics tools easily at our disposal, but it's baffling how many organizations hesitate to invest in comprehensive analysis of their corporate reputation. Trust me: it’s worth every penny.
Mapping your company’s reputation footprint is essential. It dives into your news coverage, social media presence, and beyond to identify the triggers that demand a reactive stance and the opportunities for proactive engagement. It helps you anticipate the narrative currents before they swell, figuring out whether a setback is just a bump in the road or a sign of deeper troubles. Importantly, it provides essential insights to guide the fine-tuning of your team’s strategy, resources, and overarching structure.
Next, Embrace An “80% Proactive” Strategy
Taking a page from Charlie Munger's playbook, who famously said, "show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome," I work with CEOs to make proactivity the heartbeat of their communication strategy. It’s about aligning incentives in such a way that proactivity isn’t just encouraged; it's ingrained in every communication effort.3
In practice, this means dedicating 80% of communication efforts towards proactive initiatives—setting the agenda and pushing narratives forward. The remaining 20% is reserved for defense, responding to unforeseen challenges and external pressures. By maintaining this 80/20 balance, leaders can ensure they're not just reacting to the world but actively shaping it according to their vision and goals.
Here are four interconnected ideas to get started with an 80% Proactive Strategy:
Establish Proactivity As a Key Comms Metric
What: Make proactivity a central performance indicator for your Communications team, ensuring it's consistently tracked. Incentives drive outcomes.Why: This transforms proactive efforts from a aspirational concept into a quantifiable goal, driving the team towards action.
Hint: Use AI to track whether communication outputs—like articles and social media activity—stem from proactive versus reactive efforts, and also analyze impact on sentiment. Integrate this metric into fabric of your team, including one-on-ones, reports, and strategic planning.
Hardwire Proactivity Into Your Org Structure
What: Ensure proactive storytelling is a consistent focus by allocating specific resources for daily narrative-building efforts. This requires a division of labor: "offense" (proactive efforts) vs. "defense" (likely your crisis team).
Why: Teams bogged down in crisis or reactive tasks struggle to push proactive narratives, leading to a cycle that's hard to break. By reevaluating your organizational structure, teams can ensure space and focus for proactive narrative building.
Hint: To maintain a proactive agenda 80% of the time, your investment in proactive resources should be roughly 5x that of reactive ones.Build A Comms Culture That Prioritizes Proactivity
What: Demand a Comms culture that elevates proactive efforts as its true north, ensuring these efforts aren't just aspirations but form the foundation of your strategy.
Why: Many world-class communicators often stand out in crisis situations, an essential skill. Yet, it's crucial that your team's identity extends far beyond emergency responses. My advice: Your senior Comms leaders should clearly champion proactive, positive storytelling as much as, if not more than, they manage crises.
Hint: A peek into your team’s agendas, strategy, planning and measurement documents will reveal a lot about the current balance—or imbalance—between reactive and proactive approaches.Look Closely At Your Talent Composition
What: Assess your current comms talent to ensure it aligns with your proactivity objectives. Identify if your team has the ideal mix of individuals skilled in proactive narrative development and those adept at crisis management.4
Why: The right talent composition is key. Some communicators excel in proactive scenarios, crafting and driving narratives over the long-term. Others thrive in crisis situations. While both are absolutely needed, it's essential to carefully calibrate the right balance of these two skill sets to meet your strategic goals.
Hint: If you have an instinct that certain team members are at their absolute best in short-term high-pressure situations, think carefully about whether they might be the best applied to reactive situations.
The Elephant In The Room: Bigger Changes
Finally, let’s address the big question CEOs often bring up : Do you have the right senior Comms leaders or external resources in place to drive a proactive agenda forward? There’s no one-size-fits-all advice I can provide without fully understanding your situation. But I’ll say this: sweeping changes are far from a cure-all and often stir up more problems than they fix. Yet, sometimes, that's exactly what you need to move forward.
Here's a straightforward way to start the process of thinking about it: Take a hard look at your Head of Communications or your agency. Ask yourself: Do I fully trust their leadership, strategy, execution, work ethic and ability to consistently deliver? And also ask: Do their skill sets position them to lead an ongoing proactive agenda over the long term? It's okay to experience ups and downs over weeks and even months; that's a natural part of the game. But at the core, you need to have rock-solid trust in their skills and leadership for your next chapter.
The Bottom Line
If you're a CEO who worries communications strategy might consistently be a step behind, don't sit on that uneasy feeling; take action before things snowball.
My advice doesn't come out of thin air; it's rooted in solid data showing a stark contrast between the overwhelmingly positive sentiment from proactive communication (99%) and the predominantly negative sentiment from reactive efforts (80%). To me, this is a call to action to deliberately integrate proactivity into the DNA of your Comms strategy.
So, ask yourself:
Is my Communications team investing sufficiently in our proactive efforts?
Does our daily work prioritize proactivity?
Do we have the talent and resources necessary to sustain a proactive agenda?
Do we know how to measure progress in these areas?
If you can answer ‘yes’ to each question, that’s great. You’re probably headed in a solid direction.
But if you find yourself hesitating, it's time to dig deeper.
Give me a call for strategic consultation. Let's discuss how you can enhance your communication strategy to get you back on the front foot.
Will
Publisher, The Repute
Founder and Principal, Valentine Advisors
will@valentine-advisors.com
A) The dataset we analyzed is comprehensive but primarily composed of early and growth-stage U.S. companies. This focus likely skewed results slightly in two ways: 1), there's less neutral sentiment than one might typically find with more mature companies. 2) there seems to be an outsized trend towards 'very positive' reactions over just generally “positive” ones.
However, I’m confident this doesn’t alter the core point of this article. From conducting similar analyses across different companies and sectors, the stark contrast in sentiment—predominantly positive when proactive strategies are used and negative with reactive ones—remains clear and consistent, mirroring the trends observed in this study.
B) This research focused on press but I've been diving into the effectiveness of proactivity within social media conversations a bit, conducting preliminary research and some tests. Early results suggest it remains a very significant lever; however, the inherent dynamics of social media platforms seem to mute the overall sentiment benefit somewhat vs media. My hypothesis: This is largely attributable to the widespread troll-like behavior on these platforms, where even the most positive content can become a battleground for unrelated discussions on politics and societal issues. Exploring the nuances of proactivity in social media's unique environment is on my radar for the future.
C) Finally, if you really want to nerd out, the bubble size in the chart denotes outlets tiers. The bigger the bubble, the more influential the outlet.
I could talk about this for hours, but wanted to keep my article streamlined. But for those who want to go deeper, here are some jumping off points worth a read. Some articles focus directly on the importance of sentiment, while others navigate related trends and directions.
Emotional Drivers of Consumer Behavior
"The New Science of Customer Emotions" by Magids, Zorfas, & Leemon, as featured in the Harvard Business Review in November 2015, underscores the power of emotional connections in driving business growth and profitability. The authors reveal that leveraging nearly 300 emotional motivators can significantly influence customer behavior, outpacing traditional metrics like brand awareness and customer satisfaction.
The Role of Compensation Beyond Money in Workforce Motivation
Andrew Chamberlain's Harvard Business Review piece from January 17, 2017, "What Matters More to Your Workforce than Money," challenges the notion that salary is the ultimate motivator for employees. Chamberlain digs deeper, suggesting that job satisfaction, recognition, and development opportunities are what truly energize employees. Essentially, while competitive pay may attract talent, a positive work sentiment encourages them to stay.
Market Dynamics: Fundamentals vs. Emotions
"Do fundamentals—or emotions—drive the stock market?" by Goedhart, Koller, and Wessels in the McKinsey Quarterly, March 1, 2005, examines the dynamic interplay between market fundamentals and investor sentiment. Acknowledging the long-term alignment of the stock market with economic fundamentals, the authors highlight instances where investor emotions can lead to short-term market anomalies. This analysis suggests that while fundamentals provide the framework, emotions can significantly influence market movements.
The 80% offense / 20% defense ratio should be tailored to fit the specifics of your business. Companies mired in controversy (I’ve worked for a couple) will need to realistically take those ratios down a bit to start, and work their way up. But remember: hitting a 100% proactive stance is a myth. The unforeseen is inevitable for groundbreaking businesses and planning accordingly is just good sense.
Over time you can aim to optimize your proactivity vs. reactivity ratios.
You could also integrate this approach into your hiring process, especially for senior communications roles. For instance, you can ask interview questions designed to gauge a candidate's success with proactive strategies. For certain positions, it might even be worth measuring a candidate’s track record of proactive versus reactive communication at their current or previous employers.