Symbolic Communication
22nd July 2006 by Carol Kinsey Goman
In 1964, the campaign of President Lyndon Johnson produced the famous daisy commercial that showed a little girl picking daisies, while the voice-over warned of candidate Barry Goldwater’s extremism. The commercial ended with an image of a nuclear explosion in the background. At that point, words became unnecessary - the relationship between Goldwater and nuclear war was visually etched in the minds of American voters.
In organizations, there are many ways to communicate symbolically. There are ceremonies, awards, logos, icons, drawings, success/failure stories, metaphors, etc. And there are real-life leadership behaviors that “speak” volumes.
Folks at BBC still remember when Michael Grade, then controller and now director-general of BBC One, visited the news department one day when they were short-staffed. He pitched in and acted as a junior researcher to cover a shipwreck incident, finding a member of the coast guard to interview. That example raced through the company grapevine to become a positive symbol of corporate change.
How about you? What symbolic communication has been especially powerful for your organization?
April 30th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Symbolic communication coming from high executives of the company is always a useful and powerful tool, especially when CEO or these high executives are new.
It is a way of letting employees know them and put themselves closer to them.
For example, I remember when my current CEO had just a few months in our company, during a meeting with sales force in a very warm place, he went out of the room and returned with a refrigerator full of beers for everyone.
He also began showing himself during corporate events or meetings with employees without a tie and dressed in a casual way. That went perfectly well with his message of wanting to turn the company into a more dynamic and modern one.
He opened forums to talk to him directly through Intranet, telephone conferences and town hall meetings.
I think he did a very good job in taking his message across not ontly through what he said in formal communication channels, but also through this symbolic communication.
Erika