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Learning from the Vatican [part 2]

by Deborah Hinton

At the time, I found the nun’s description of the disciplined efficiency of the Vatican communication at once awe inspiring and horrifying [see earlier post].  And, even more now as every day brings news of new sexual abuse scandals and questions about who knew what and when?

I have no ‘inside’ knowledge and use the situation of the Church to explore what can and does go wrong in organizations and perhaps gain some understanding of what that might mean to us as communicators.

As an organization, the Church had much that corporate communicators wish for:

  • A clarity of vision, mission and values [more on this later]
  • A trusted and recognized brand
  • Strong and visible and articulate leadership
  • Powerful rituals and symbols
  • A relationship rather than a transactional focus to clients
  • Few layers between the CEO to the front line
  • A structured and disciplined approach to communicating
  • A continuous flow of rich information out of HQ and back from the ‘front lines’
  • A global network of potential communicators [priests] who by calling and training are more empathetic than your average manager
  • Opportunity for weekly conversation with clients and potential clients.

So, what happened?  And what can we learn from this? [to follow]

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Deborah Hinton Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
Permalink Communication, Corporate communication, Culture, Customer, Internal communication No Comments

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