Enter the CRO, Chief Reinforcement Officer, the person
charged with reinforcing company messages over and over and over again.
I was with the management team of a heavy industrial company
last week. The culture of this company is such that they are super responsible
to the point of being obsessed about accountability and safety. And there are
tons of examples of how they live their words of accountability and safety. Yet
they face a lot of audiences that just don’t like the business they’re in and
so they’re often faced with unfriendly interactions. Opposition.
It happens. It’s not fun, but it happens.
So, in training some of this company’s top-level
spokespeople, it came up that the General Manager calls himself the CRO, the
Chief Reinforcement Officer. I laughed initially, but then I decided it was
brilliant! Of course, a CRO! A CRO is absolutely necessary in any company – not
just in a company that has a lot of critics. In fact, it should be a team;
anyone who is a spokesperson for an organization should be on the CRO team.
Unless audiences hear a message over and over and over
again, it will never stick. Reinforcement is the key. Actually, reinforcement
is the only way. Saying the same word or phrase or sentence over and over and over again. Tedious
for spokespeople perhaps, but effective in creating stickiness with audiences.
I think I’ll cover messaging sandwiches next time. Message –
Info – Message. Yep, a perfect sandwich.
