What exactly must an executive communication professional know to be effective?
Executive communication has evolved over the past couple of decades from “CEO speechwriter” into a far broader, more demanding, and strategically vital communication discipline. Increasingly executive communication professionals need a shared knowledge and a common methodology in order to meet the new demands of their work.
The Executive Communication Council and the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership are proud to present the first certificate course designed specifically for executive communication professionals to enhance their ability to be genuinely strategic in their role. Featuring renowned leadership communication coach and teacher Helio Fred Garcia, this course will transform the skills of executive communication practitioners and whole exec comms teams. And eventually, it will transform executive communication into a dramatically more powerful and effective discipline.
CURRICULUM
Communication has power to influence outcomes, to build competitive advantage for organizations, and to change society.
But all too often that power is dissipated, leading to a loss of competitive position and little return on the investment of human and other resources.
This program will teach executive communication professionals how to apply the principles of strategy to help their senior leaders advance an organization’s goals.
You’ll learn how to:
- Think clearly and strategically about every challenge you confront and opportunity that presents itself
- Define desired outcomes and organize communication to achieve them
- Deeply understand audiences and what it takes to change their behavior
- Use language more effectively to provoke behavioral change
- Enhance your ability to become a trusted advisor to leaders
Participants will learn how to plan executive communication using a strategic communication planning tool. Every element builds on the one before, so that each tactic demonstrably creates an impact on stakeholders and helps advance an organizational goal by provoking a designed change within an audience.
Participants will also learn advanced techniques to craft communication in ways that predictably provoke the desired change within an audience. And participants will learn how to prevent or overcome the marginalization of the communication function and to earn a seat at the table as important decisions are being made.
Leadership Communication Academy is comprised of four essential modules:
I. Communicating Strategically
This module focuses on the rigor necessary to use communication to secure a business outcome. It includes:
- Defining and applying communication strategy
- Detailing a five-step process to understand the concerns, priorities, and fears of a prospective audience
- Identifying the barriers to an audience feeling, knowing, and doing what you need them to do to secure a business outcome.
- Determining what audiences need to experience in order to help you secure the business outcome
II. Becoming a Trusted Strategic Advisor
This module focuses on how communication professionals can become trusted strategic advisors to senior leaders. It covers:
- How professional communicators unwittingly marginalize themselves
- Five strategies to overcome that marginalization
- How to effectively advise non-communicators
- A practical tool to give advice quickly and effectively to senior leaders
III. Managing Meaning
This module focuses on framing: Creating the context that leads audiences to a desired conclusion. The module will show—and help you contend with and take control over—two profound communication realities:
- Facts alone are rarely persuasive
- How slightly different frames with the same facts can lead people to dramatically different conclusions
Senior executive communication leaders who sampled the Leadership Communication Academy reported that this module was the most profound game-changer in the course.
IV. Persuasive Storytelling
This module teaches how to structure communication to engage audiences by:
- Creating and maintaining dramatic tension between the current reality and desired future state
- Inspiring quicker support for ideas
- Motivating behavior change
- Fostering agreement and commitment to a cause
AGENDA
Get ready for an intensive, hands-on course with no more than 20 participants. Two full days, 8 am to 5 pm, with a one-hour lunch (provided), and several breaks.
Day 1, Morning: Communicating Strategically
- Foundations of strategy
- Applying strategy to communication
- Strategic communication planning tool
- In-class exercise
Day 1, Afternoon: Becoming a Trusted Advisor
- Why communication professionals and the communications function are often marginalized
- Strategies for preventing or overcoming marginalization
- The art of giving advice to non-communicators
- The Three-Minute Drill.(by James E. Lukaszewski, Fellow, PRSA; used with permission)
- In-class exercise
Day 2, Morning: Managing Meaning
- Understanding the importance of framing and how to create context that drives meaning
- The dangers of mis-framing or of allowing others to frame your issue
- How to effectively reframe
- Framing being about the “Why”
Day 2, Afternoon: Persuasive Storytelling
- Understanding the power of story to engage audiences.
- Stories have shapes
- The shape of a persuasive story
- In-class exercise
- Course Wrap-Up, A Path Forward, and Next Steps
INSTRUCTORS
Helio Fred Garcia
For more than 40 years, Helio Fred Garcia has helped leaders build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively. He is a coach, counselor, teacher, writer, and speaker whose clients include some of the largest and best-known corporations, nonprofits and governments in the world.
Fred is the President of Logos Consulting Group and executive director of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership. Fred has been on the New York University faculty since 1988. He is an adjunct professor of management in the Stern School of Business where he teaches crisis management in the Executive MBA program, and where he was named 2016 Executive MBA Great Professor. Fred is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University, where he teaches ethics, crisis, and leadership in the Professional Development and Leadership program of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.
He has published six books, including The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively
Katie Garcia
For more than 18 years, Katie Garcia has helped leaders and emerging leaders across industries to improve their ability to lead and to communicate effectively.
She is a Senior Advisor at Logos Consulting Group and a Senior Fellow at the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership.
Katie founded Athene Strategies, a strategic and crisis communication consulting firm that works with small- to medium-size organizations across a variety of sectors, including non-profits, NGOs and INGOs, social action campaigns, and religious and educational institutions. Katie previously served in communication leadership roles at the Fair Housing Justice Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization based in New York City, at the Starr King School for the Ministry, and at Religions for Peace, the largest multi-religious coalition of senior religious leaders working for peace.
Katie is a contract lecturer at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia University and Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, where she teaches classes on communication and navigating difficult conversations.
COURSE DETAILS
Format: Interactive in-class instruction and exercises that help participants master strategy and its application best practices through real-world work.
Assessment: Participants will engage in three in-room written exercises that will be assessed to determine their mastery of content.
Certificate: Participants who attend and participate in the two full days and successfully complete the in-room exercises will receive a certificate and a badge for your LinkedIn page and your email signature indicating you’ve completed Leadership Communication Academy.
Enrollment limit: Maximum, 20 participants.
Location: The Gleacher Center, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Downtown Chicago.
Who Should Attend: Leadership Communication Academy is essential learning for everyone on an executive communication team, from the most senior leader to the most junior staffer.
More About the Conveners: Learn more about the Executive Communication Council, and the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership.
REGISTER
Cancellations Policy
No refunds on cancellations less than 30 days before the start of event. Within 30 days, your payment will be credited toward a future Executive Communication Council or Professional Speechwriters Association event.
$2995 to attend Leadership Communication Academy on March 11-12, 2025.
Groups of 4 or more are eligible for a 25% off discount. Please inquire with Benjamine Knight ([email protected]) for details.
Phone registrations please call 312-585-6383.
A note regarding accommodations: while hotel options in Chicago are endless, we recommend booking your stay at one of these three properties which are within a 5-minute walk from the Gleacher Center (450 Cityfront Plaza Dr, Chicago, IL 60611): InterContinental Magnificent Mile, Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, or Loews Chicago.
$2,995.00