Like Mr Bond, just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean you should... but having a formal gating process might prevent some media mishaps, too

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"Just because you've been through this," warns the head of comms at division of a global bank to today's coaching participant, "don't assume you can go off and have a background lunch with the FT tomorrow."
No indeed. Here, you need a media 'licence' before you can do that - a kind of systems check that not only do you know how to manage an interview with a reporter, but that you are generally going to be trusted to wield the power with responsibility.
It's not the case everywhere. Often, we're doing message and execution tweaking (not to mention confidence building) literally minutes before an exec is about to do their first live TV spot.
But as an outside-in advisor, I'm often asked to run the rule over potential spokespeople and report back if they are generally fit for duty, or need to be kept well away from anyone with an audience. And while most of the time my work is about preparing people and their narratives to be useful for audiences, supportive for the organisation, and de-risked in general, I'm sometimes also asked to bring the slightly too self-impressed down a peg or two. Supportively, of course.
I think the idea of a 'media licence' is actually a pretty good one. In an organisation where the core is trying really hard to express a strategy, and cascade local versions of that strategy through every division and market so it resonates with their stakeholders, why not establish guidelines for the voices, as well as the words?
It enables corp comms teams to try and enable those they want to speak, even if they need some brushing up. And it sets a clear barrier to those who might not succeed, for whatever reason, until they have made the changes that will tend to deliver success.
All of these issues are thinking through to the outcomes: for individuals, the teams, for organisations and sometimes even for industries. How can we get the outcomes we want, with the ideas that we have, while satisfying the media agenda for usefulness for their audience? And most critically, can we do that with Person A, or with Person B?
Media compliance is another strand of this - making sure that there is a strategy in place for every one of the team to be able to manage an inbound call, chance meeting at a networking event, or making remarks in a room where reporters might be present. Those people may not need a licence - but they need to know how the game works. More Q, than Bond.
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