My Takeaways from the Strategic Communications Course by Sola Abulu & Associates

In the spirit of sharing knowledge, I am glad I’m writing this blog post. Actually, the fact that I am writing this post is proof that I haven’t given up on my 2023 goals. If you don’t know what I am talking about, you need to read my previous blog post :-).

When I attended the NAPE Course in November, I just knew I had to sign up for Mrs Sola Abulu’s Strategic Communications course. It could have been easy to say I already had all the knowledge I needed with regards to strategic communications but I believe that kind of thinking is what sets people up for redundancy at best and failure at worst.

Knowing how deeply knowledgeable and experienced SA (as I call her) is, I was looking forward to being part of this one-day class and I was ready to soak in everything she shared.

The class started bright and early by 9am WAT on a Thursday and we spent over seven hours learning, engaging and having our minds expanded. Yes, SA did share things I already knew but she shared a number of things that were new to me and a lot of things that gave me a different perspective.

The icing on the cake for this course was listening to and reading contributions from other participants who came from different countries and sectors. No, that’s not the main icing on the cake! The actual icing on the cake is that we get to have three coaching sessions with SA where she will offer solutions and advice for individual professional challenges. How amazing is that?

If it isn’t obvious already, I did learn a lot from the course but I’d like to share a few key takeaways that I believe you will find useful:

– The key to being an effective and result-driven communications professional is to begin from the organisational or business context. As SA said, don’t start from what you think the solution is. Start from where your organisation is, what it needs and what problems your executives are trying to solve. This is a direct quote from SA, “Deliver yourself from tactical communications.” I’ll say no more.

– The second point is related to the first. Monitor outcomes not activities. I talked about this in my Comms Course on Strategic Communications which is on my YouTube channel. Your organisation doesn’t really care if 200 people attended your event or how many followers you gained on social media if that does not directly lead to outcomes that translate to tangible business/ organisational results.

– Your goal as a communications professional is to become so embedded within your organisation that they cannot move or take a decision without you being at the table. This can only happen if you are strategic about delivering the right results.

– Speaking about having a seat at the table…let me just put a direct quote from Darbuni Maikori (the course moderator) that is self-explanatory. “Seats on the table are not free. They are not an inheritance that is just given to you. You have to earn it.” And how do you earn it? I’m sure you can guess the answer – by becoming a trusted advsior who delivers results that move the organisation forward and into where it needs to be.

I’ll leave you with this final takeaway – What keeps your boss or leaders awake at night? Understanding this will help you to become relevant to your organisation.

Thank you SA for such a valuable class! Allow me to encourage you to be deliberate about developing your competencies and skills in the new year. Pay for courses and trainings. Even if your organisation won’t pay for it, choose to invest in yourself. Your future professional self will thank you. SA has other valuable courses coming up in 2024 which you can check out here.

At The Comms Avenue, we’re also running our Comms Intensive Africa courses in the new year. The first course on Strategic Communications will begin in February and enrollment is already open. You can find out more here.

Finally, I want to do something in the new year for communications professionals that have between 0+ to 5 years of experience (if you fall outside of this group, do accept my apologies).

Actually, I want to do two things:

1. A webinar to help you hit the ground running in 2024 and deliver valuable results through your Comms activities. This webinar will only be open to 20 professionals. If you’d like to be notified when registration opens for this webinar, please click here.

2. The second thing is that I’d like to mentor at least 10 young professionals next year. I haven’t been able to do one on one mentoring as much as I would have liked to so I want to be intentional about doing this next year. Watch out for more details if this is something you’d be interested in!

Thank you for reading today’s post. Remember to stay committed to your professional growth and development.