George N Mtonga WRITES:
Corporate Communication Vs Public Space Communication Hakainde Hichilema .
So this is how I have read ba boss. In corporate, even my professors in Zambia are teaching me about communication. You generally communicate after having gone through extensive processes to ensure that your communication does not take away shareholder value. This is why an incident will happen and it will take time for a company to respond. They are crafting a message that is approved by the right channels. You expect to wait for for them, you expect a press release.
This is the culture HH is coming from. He does his work, and there are procedures for his work to be communicated and generally value for shareholders is money in their pockets. So there is not much talk. I give you money that’s it.
The public doesn’t work like that… you can’t be doing quarterly pressers the same way we do for shareholders. There are lies that come out that the president and his team allow public opinion to come out before they actually address it.
Load shedding, no communication, debt restructuring no communication, mealie meal no communication.
The president waits until he has something of value to communicate… I say don’t wait. Even If it’s communicating a previous stage that has already been communicated do it. This prevents public opinion from going the wrong way.
Mr President… YOU ARE NO LONGER A MANAGING PARTNER OR A CEO who is tasked by the board to create value for shareholders. You are leading human beings, NOT SHAREHOLDERS.
I really need to emphasize the difference because I have noticed this about you. You are approaching things like a CEO of a company …. the Zambian people boss need a PRESIDENT not a CEO… you don’t need to wait 3 months to communicate what you want to communicate there are No agms… in this world.
Any time, any day anywhere you can use that as a platform to communicate your vision and where things stand.
At least HH does hold press conferences regularly, unlike his predecessor who was mute in all the seven years of his presidency.
However, I agree that he needs to communicate more frequently in the light of the myriad challenges facing our country. The noisy and lying opposition does not help matters either.
Things will be rough this year and we all need to put on our thinking caps as individual families instead of waiting for the government to provide solutions. Let us be proactive.