Ralph Tench, Dejan Verčič, Ansgar Zerfass,

Angeles Moreno, Piet Verhoeven (2017)

Communication Excellence:
How to Develop, Manage and Lead
Exceptional Communications
Palgrave Macmillan _ eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-48860-8 _ Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-48859-2
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-48860-8

Marta Takahashi

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BOOK REVIEW
The astounding new book “Communication Excellence: How to Develop, Manage and Lead
Exceptional Communications” (2017), written by famous experts in communication sciences,
Ralph Tench, PhD, Professor in Communications Education from Leeds Beckett University,
UK; Dejan Verčič, PhD, Professor and Head of Centre for Marketing and Public Relations at
the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Ansgar Zerfass, PhD, Professor and Chair in Strategic
Communication at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at the University of
Leipzig, Germany; Ángeles Moreno, PhD, Professor of Public Relations and Communication
Management, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid; and Piet Verhoeven, PhD, Associate Professor
in Corporate Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research and the
College and Graduate School of Communication Science from Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
presents a culmination of research and best practice models covering strategic communication,
the impact on reputation, crisis, mediatisation, organisational culture, new digital, social and
mobile media as well as the development of professionalization.

This book presents a new framework to support the future development of communication
departments in companies, non-profits and other types of organisations. The insights
presented here are based on results from ten years of empirical research by the European
Communication Monitor. Excellence is a difficult and potentially controversial topic. What
stands out from the discussions is the depth and level of understanding that the book brings
to a complex and much-debated area of strategic communication. These insights have enabled
authors to paint a picture of what constitutes communication in organisations today, but
also what makes for the highest performance.

The book foreword is written by Herbert Heitmann, PhD, President of European Association
of Communication Directors, and the preface is signed by all five authors of the book. It is
followed by the 3 main parts of the book (with a total of 9 chapters/commandments), an
epilogue, an appendix, and an index.

Part 1, “Connected Organisations”, focuses on the organisation and the positioning of

communication departments in the wider context of society and revolving around the important
theme of being connected. The first commandment in this part, “Globalised: The World We
Live in”, shows how we are interdependent, and how we affect people living on the other side
of the globe and how they affect us. In that sense, public relations is a profession concerned

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RALPH TENCH, DEJAN VERČIČ, ANSGAR ZERFASS, ANGELES MORENO, PIET VERHOEVEN (2017)
 with the management of interdependencies between organisations and their stakeholders.
This commandment explains several important statements: (1) internationalisation is deeply
affecting strategic communication practices; (2) liberalisation of trade in the second half of the
twentieth century brought unprecedented wealth to the West, but also unexpected downsides
and crises; (3) organisations develop excellence in response to environmental pressures; (4)
Westernisation is worldwide modernisation, and anybody who wants to stay at the top of the
global communication game has to start paying attention to communication practices beyond
the borders of the Western world; (5) contemporary global society emerged out of Western
modernisation that produced a Westernistic global society with interdependence at its core.

The second commandment, “Mediatised: Media All Around Us” talks about the development
of mass media, and how technology has considerably changed the way organisations
communicate in the last decade, and also about the importance of social media. Mediatisation
first and foremost means the omnipresence of media in our current hypermodern society.
The past decade has shown a great convergence of media importance and use in the field of
communication management in Europe. The authors further write about the three faces of
mediatisation for communication management: “the classical face: press and media relations,
still the Top Dog”, “the new face: co-production of news” and “the future face: the media
as a partner: strategic mediatisation”. It is also very interesting how authors noticed that
consumers, bloggers and employees are considered relevant and important as new digital
gatekeepers about the organisation on the social web, and therefore take an important position
alongside and in addition to journalists.

The third commandment, “Reflective: Organisations Reinvent Themselves”, shows how

excellent organisations are more open to influences from wider environments than non-
excellent organisations. Moreover, it is this openness that gives them a competitive, strategic
advantage. Further to that, strategic management is founded on a very simple idea: that the
world is progressively changing due to the use of scientific methods and continuous learning.
This commandment also teaches us what makes excellent communication departments
different from other communication departments - it is their self-understanding. The most
communicative organisations are not those with the best communicators or communication
departments, but with top management that appreciates and understands communication.

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Part 2, “Influential Departments”, looks at the departmental level or the communication
function inside the organisation. The fourth commandment, “Embedded: Influence Through
Communicative Leadership” states how excellent communication departments are embedded
in the organisation they work for and the organisation is effectively embedded in the societal,
cultural and social spaces they are part of. The authors argue, based on the European
Communication Monitor research, that communication executives face a threefold leadership
challenge: (1) to help organisational leaders to be communicative; (2) to support overall goals
of the organisation through strategic communication, which includes messaging as well as
listening; (3) to lead the communication department.

Next, the fifth commandment, “Datafied: Research, Measure and Evaluate”, indicates that, in a
professional environment, research is indispensable. Successful strategies depend on research
and so does the evaluation of the success of policies and interventions. It demonstrates that
evaluation is the alpha and omega of any successful strategy. Here the important rule is: “you
cannot evaluate what you cannot measure and you cannot improve what you cannot evaluate”.

The sixth commandment, “Strategised: Informed, Anticipatory and Trusted”, determines the
meaning of “being strategic”, which is undoubtedly an essential ingredient for success; for
successful organisations and for successful communication activities from press relations,
internal communication to campaigning. This commandment also explains why linking
communication and business strategy is the biggest issue for the field. Being a strategised
department means that you have an overall communication strategy and policies, combined
with specific strategies for specific problems. Strategic means that you take the other into
account, which is not easy.

Part 3, “Ambitious Professionals”, drills down to the core elements that support and deliver
‘excellence’ at a personal or individual level. In the seventh commandment, “Sagacious:
Knowledgeable, Reflective and Shrewd”, the authors talk about being Sagacious – as in
the definition of this term – this involves being knowledgeable, demonstrating reflective
wisdom, as well as shrewdness and, at times, applying appropriate mental discernment. They
demonstrate these through detailed discussion and evidence on educational experience and
expectations as well as exploring the explicit competencies of high performing communicators.
Furthermore, the authors state that professionalisation in communication management has,

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RALPH TENCH, DEJAN VERČIČ, ANSGAR ZERFASS, ANGELES MORENO, PIET VERHOEVEN (2017)
 according to practitioners in Europe, three dimensions: training the communication team,
continuing to develop yourself and engaging in mentoring and networking.

Next, the eighth commandment, “Linked: People, Media and Networks”, attests to the fact
that we all love to be connected, and because of that, we not only use communication to
orient in time and space, we use it to influence the world around us. That is why professional
communication, public relations and strategic communication involves embracing the total
life experience of organisations.

The final, ninth commandment, “Solid: Strong, Sensitive and Savvy”, points to the importance of
listening. Multi-level listening has four levels: listening to yourself, listening to co-workers and
colleagues, listening to customers and listening to the other stakeholders of the organisation
and to society. Part of being solid is being able to listen well on all these levels. Here, the
authors also talk about ethics, and differences based on the gender of communicators.

The epilogue “The Future of Excellent Communication: From a Soft to a Hard Discipline”,
concludes that strategic communication resides in connected organisations with influential
communication departments in which ambitious professionals work. Organisations need
to accept the whole world as a field in which they have to benchmark, so they must be
purposefully globalised, and they have to grow their ‘connectors’ around the globe to see,
listen, smell and feel what is going on and be able to present themselves – so they must be
purposefully mediatised. Organisations are required to act, interact, reflect and learn to
reinvent themselves every single day – so they must be reflective.

The appendix is about the “European Communication Monitor (ECM) and Its Methodology”.
ECM explores current practices and future developments of strategic communication and
public relations in companies, non-profits and other organisations including communication
agencies. Over the last ten years, more than 21,000 European communication professionals
from over 40 countries participated in the survey of the monitor, ranging from 1,087 in 2007
to 2,710 in 2016. “Communication Excellence: How to Develop, Manage and Lead Exceptional
Communications” is based on these numerous surveys, making this magnificent book even
more impressive.

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COMMUNICATION EXCELLENCE: HOW TO DEVELOP, MANAGE AND LEAD EXCEPTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS 131
RALPH TENCH, DEJAN VERČIČ, ANSGAR ZERFASS, ANGELES MORENO, PIET VERHOEVEN (2017)
 Damir Jugo (2017)

Menadžment kriznog
komuniciranja

Zagreb _ Školska knjiga _ Edward Bernays Visoka škola za komunikacijski menadžment

ISBN: 978-953-0-30287-7

Darija Jeger

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BOOK REVIEW
We are witnessing the growing need for crisis communication. There is great competition in
the market and every wrong step in the business leads to huge losses, not just moneywise,
but also in the terms of consumers. It is incorrect to think that a crisis cannot be predicted.
What is true is that a crisis cannot be predicted by anyone but the person educated in
the area. What makes this book, Management of Crisis Communication, special are the
author’s competences. Damir Jugo is a researcher in the field of communication science
and one of the most prominent public relations practitioners in the region. Thanks to the
experience gained in these three areas, the author adapted the book to everyone: students,
professors, as well as experts. Regardless of degree of knowledge, this book will be used
as a kind of textbook by everyone in the field of crisis communication.

As the author stated in the preamble, the book is divided into two parts: Crisis communication
and Crisis communication strategies. In the first part, through five chapters, the author
positions crisis communication and presents the crisis life cycle. In the second part, through
four chapters, using his practical experience, the author handles specific strategies and
approaches to crisis communication (Jugo, 2017, p. 6).

In the first chapter, “Basic definitions of crisis communication”, the author acquaints the
readers with the basics of crisis communication. At the very beginning, the author notes
that “Crisis communication is one of the most challenging areas of contemporary public
relations practice” (Jugo, 2017, p.12). Furthermore, he explains the difference between
crisis management and crisis communication, the two key concepts most people consider
to be identical. Special attention is devoted to the media and the rapid development of
technology that occupy a special role in the emergence of the crisis. At the very end of
the chapter the importance of proactive communication and a strategic approach to
communication is emphasized.

The second chapter is devoted to the theoretical analysis of key concepts of crisis
communication. That is why this chapter provides definition of terms: issue, risk and
crisis. Considering the many definitions of crisis, the author devoted time to divide and
explain three common elements in all of them that explain the crisis as an atypical event
that causes damage to the organization and forces it to communicate with different
groups. Furthermore, the chapter brings the theoretical section of the concepts of crisis

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DAMIR JUGO
 management and crisis communication in which readers become acquainted with five
myths about crisis communication. The author in fourth section of this chapter offers a
look at crisis communication through the prism of strategic communication, presenting
the RACE model as a model for successful planning and management in public relations
(Jugo, 2017, p.36). Finally, attention is placed on image and reputation, on which a crisis
can leave serious consequences.

“The theory of crisis communication” is the title of the third chapter of the book. The
chapter is divided into 5 sections defining possible theoretical approaches during crisis
communication. The first is , the organization’s reaction to accusations by its publics. Then
we are presented with the , according to which the organization establishes threats and
locates the publics with which it has to communicate in order to restore its image. is the
third approach to a crisis. This approach is based on providing information to stakeholders
who, during the crisis, have the need for and demand it. The fourth approach, the , puts
stakeholders in its center, while the last presented approach is , the most applicable theory
in crisis communication.

Chapter four, “Classification of crisis situations”, explains how to analyze a crisis situation.
Through the chapter, defined are possible causes of a crisis situation, a crisis created in
an external environment, a crisis created within the organization as well as types of crisis
situations. Special attention is directed to an unintentionally triggered crisis such as a
crisis caused by natural disasters and technical circumstances.

With the fifth chapter, the “Life cycle and development” phase of crisis situations, the
first part of book ends. This chapter brings together basic models that address the crisis
life cycle definition: the three phase crisis model, the four phase crisis model and the five
phase crisis model. Explained at the very end of the chapter shown is a six stage sequencing
of prediction failure, the oldest model which has catastrophes in its focus.

“Strategic crisis management: Pre–crisis phase” is the sixth chapter of the book and also
the beginning of its second part. Focusing on practical knowledge, the chapter offers an
overview of methods used to analyze the situation during a crisis. The chapter is divided
into five sections, offering a comprehensive guide to public relations practitioners during

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the pre-crisis period.   

The seventh chapter of the book, “Strategic crisis management: Communication during
the crisis”, is concerned with an awareness of the importance of good communication
during a crisis. This chapter provides the form and content of communication during
a crisis, ways of adapting communication to specific stakeholders and analyzing the
external and internal public. Moreover, the chapter elaborates on communication with
the media during a crisis and the role of individuals in the organizational system because
the organization is made up of people who have to be adequately represented. In the last
section of the chapter, the author explains the importance of documenting all activities
and the importance of corrective communication with stakeholders.

The eighth chapter, “Reactive communication strategies”, provides support to public relations
practitioners in a crisis situation. The author offers a total of seven key strategies that can be
utilized. For each of them it is stated that they are strategically different, how to recognize
them in practice and how to apply them in a given situation. A specific characteristic of
this chapter is the case study examples for each of the strategies, demonstrating their
proper application or ungainly use in practice.

The last chapter, “Strategic crisis management: Post-crisis phase”, rounds off full
communication activity in every crisis situation. In the first part of the chapter, the author
offers a suggestion on how to assess the consequences of a crisis as well as the undertaken
activities, taking into account that all stakeholders are involved (Jugo, 2017, p 225-229).
The second part of the chapter is about applying organizational learning as a necessary
factor in preventing the repetition of a crisis situation. In this chapter, attention is on ethics
in crisis communication and the chapter ends with ways of improving the organizational
system after a successful end to a crisis situation.

Finally, Management of Crisis Communication is comprehensive textbook for this area

of public relations. The book is easy to read thanks to its structure, which allows the easy
transmitting of knowledge and its effortless upgrading. Thanks to the wonderful graphic
design, text comprehension and pulling out key concepts are at a level that significantly
facilitates readers when learning or using the book during a crisis situation.

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DAMIR JUGO
 The list of literature at the end of each chapter, as well as at the end of the book, makes it
easy for readers to find additional literature for further reading. In addition to the list of
literature, at the end of every chapter, the author has set out questions and tasks to show
what has been presented and as a useful review to students. At the very end, the author
provides a glossary of more than 70 words as a kind of review of what has been learned
by reading this book.

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