What’s the message?
What’s the story?
What’s the look?
What’s the feel?
What’s the tone?
There was a time when the PR professional needed to focus on fine-tuning the message and then on finding a way to deliver it without distortion. This is no small feat. Get the message house approved, get the press release approved by the boss, the boss’s boss, and legal, and we were all set. But those were the good old days, when the hardest part was getting a group of senior leaders to align and rally behind a message that they agreed on. Today, the layers of complexity have increased, and the PR professional not only has to be the custodian of the message, but they also need to be able to weigh in on how that message translates across mediums into a range of stories.
The creativity to translate a message into narratives that align with the times requires a whole new set of sensibilities. A Swiss knife, if you will, where different parts come into play at different times, but all need to be available and ready on a moment’s notice.
Does the content have the right look, feel, and tone? Know thy audience, know thy platform, know the triggers to avoid, know the emotions to lean into. What colour palette is cool, and how does it align with the brand guidelines and the policy guidelines? All of this must be intuitively filtered when you are asked to be the final arbiter of what message your company, brand, or leader wants to put out into the world.
“What colour should I wear for the shoot? Formal or informal? How long should the video be? What part of that shall we use for which platform? Should it go out to all? Should it be a behind-the-scenes type of edit? Should we do it before or after the press engagement? Maybe some light music in the background?” These are a few of the questions that the PR professional of today needs to be able to field. Not just once, but many times in a day. This needs a deep understanding of the organization, the brand, the context, the individual, the competition, the platform, the policy environment, the geopolitical situation, and much more.
It demands depth, a new range of skills, rigour, and sophistication of knowledge, delivered with intuition and definitive decision-making. It also needs empathy. These are no longer just words on a press release; they are people on camera, putting themselves out there.
I find the same depth being demanded in the world of coaching. To meet the client where they are and be able to offer them exactly what they need, a coach today must have range. The ability to move from transactional to developmental to transformational coaching. After assessing in the moment what would best serve the client requires a coach to flex into areas that meet the moment with a broad range of capabilities. Understanding the context of the client and going below the surface to find the underlying story behind the message, to tune into the tone and what is not said, are the skills that are in demand.
Both worlds of communication and coaching have changed. The look and feel of things to come requires practitioners to take a deep look within, re-skill, upskill, and keep learning.
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