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Strategy + IABC = A Golden Communications Mix

When food and gasoline prices spiked in late spring and early summer of 2004, Golden Corral found itself in a food cost-and an internal communications-pickle. As Rob Brittain, Golden Corral's manager of corporate communications explains, "When a restaurant is value priced and built around an all-you-care-to-eat concept, it's inevitable that food cost increases are going to spark ripple effects throughout the organization. Menus must be rethought. New recipes and operational procedures are oftentimes introduced. In essence, you do all you can to readjust your controllables." But in the midst of making those adjustments, Golden Corral's communications team got a surprise: they learned that a couple of their tried-and-true communications vehicles fell flat under the pressures of their crisis mode.

Brittain explains that while Golden Corral had multiple communications vehicles -- both print and electronic -- at its disposal, the company culture was one that favored print and face-to-face communications. "When you're operating in a crisis communications mode," says Brittain, "the timeliness of your communications is paramount. You've got to go electronic or you'll be left in the dust."

It's All About Conditioning
While Golden Corral did communicate its crisis strategy using a mix of electronic and print media, the communications team found that they could throw an e-mail or an intranet party and that most of their guest list would be "no shows." The reason? Brittain says that, at the time, electronic communication vehicles weren't entrenched firmly enough in day-to-day operations. "We were operating under the guise that e-mail and the intranet could always serve in a support role to our print and face-to-face communications. And when we suddenly began to deliver time-sensitive, first level communications electronically, we confused more than a few of our users."

Quite simply, Golden Corral had not conditioned its users to receive first-level communications in an electronic format. Internal clients were still expecting face-to-face and print communications at time a time when neither was feasible. "A couple of weeks into the food cost crisis, I knew that we were in trouble from a communications perspective," says Brittain. "We had released new menus, recipes and operational procedures, and the word back from our multi-unit managers was that few folks knew about the changes."

The IABC Connection
Yet, as is often the case, necessity sparked change and innovation. As Brittain and his team were looking for ways to supplement their internal communications strategy with lessons learned from the food cost and communications crisis, he received notice of IABC's 2004 international conference in Los Angeles. Since several colleagues spoke highly of previous conferences and Brittain felt that the internal communications sessions looked strong, he signed up for the conference thinking that maybe he'd walk away with an idea or two.

What he walked away with, however, was much more than a couple of ideas to supplement his team's strategy. He walked away with a communications case study of company that was very much like his own -- one that had faced many of the same challenges and one that offered to share its recipe for overcoming those hurdles. Brittain adds, "The idea exchange was the most beneficial part of the conference. It was great to talk about what worked, what didn't, and why. That's why events like IABC's international conference are so important: they help to remind you that you and your company aren't in this alone. They expose you to new schools of thought and proven, real-world solutions."

Adding Third-Party Muscle
It was also at the 2004 IABC conference that Brittain tapped into a key resource that would later help him to redefine and upgrade Golden Corral's internal communications. It was there that Brittain met Steve Crescenzo, a noted IABC speaker and much ballyhooed communication consultant. Three months later, Crescenzo was working with Golden Corral -- talking about communications of the past, helping Brittain to share his vision of future communications, and making strategic communications disciples of all who crossed his path.

"When you're looking to make wholesale changes, I think it's very helpful to bring in an objective, third-party perspective," Brittain adds. "Oftentimes, you and your internal clients are simply too close to the subject matter. And if you're looking to identify and dismember organizational sacred cows, consultants can speed the process as well as make it much less painful."

The Dawn of a New Day
So, in light of lessons learned and outside influences, how are Golden Corral's internal communications different today than in early 2004? "First and foremost, we're conditioning our internal clients to utilize electronic communications on a daily basis," says Brittain. "We've launched a weekly e-mail newsletter that is sent each Thursday, and we're redesigning our intranet to make it much more of a news portal, as well as one that is easier to navigate."

Brittain is quick to add that none of these changes have been made in a vacuum or based on conjecture. "Every change we've made has been firmly based on research. By utilizing focus groups and online systemwide surveys, we've received extensive input from our end users. And we've used that input as the cornerstone for building our revised strategy."

And… what if a food cost or a communications crisis was to raise its ugly head tomorrow? Brittain says, "While no two crises are the same, today we're much better equipped to meet those challenges from a communications perspective. And crisis or no crisis, we'll continue to look for any holes in our process. After all, since the communications discipline is dynamic by nature, your communications strategy must be as well. That's part of the fun --always being prepared for the unexpected."

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