Avoiding Vulnerability While Fulfilling Your Mission ~Prince Eze Ugochukwu.
Institutions are faced with competing situations on a daily basis. To remain on top and in control, it must develop unique selling points to overcome adversities.
Those manning strategic positions in institutions must be aware of what is going on around them and in the larger society as well. No doubt about it, different situations can either help or mar an institution.
There is no Institution that is not faced with one challenge or another. This is expected. Todays world is full of technological, economic and political threats and challenges. Therefore, institutions must adopt strategies to overcome such threats. Beyond that, they must adapt to new opportunities offerred by these challenges and threats because there is always an inherent silver lining underneath every situation.
Part of self conciousness is for Institutions to conduct periodic situation analysis to understand both their internal and external environment. This is because something can go wrong both from within or from without.
For every institution, you must at all times and in all circumstances:-
1. "Know your enemy.
2. Know yourself.
3. You must "Know your terrain and
4. Know the weather".
What is your vision, what is your mission, what are your strengths and weaknesses, what are the opportunities and the threats.
Institutions must be sure of what they are offering. What programs and policies. What are the deliverables and at what price.
Communication is very critical for the vision and mission of an institutions. You can never get the buy-in of the population if you have zero or faulty interface. How is the institution promoted. What are the people being told, what are they hearing. What services are being offerred to the people and through what process. Is the nessage and messenger in sync and in harmony? A wrong messenger can render a good message unattractive.
Institutions must check the forces against it. The intensity of the rivalry, the power they weld, how damaging is this, and how can it be overcome and controlled. What are the tactical approach and terms of engagement to overcome rivals.
Most importantly, an institution must be able to create, communicate, and deliver value, to the population. Who are your target audience?, what gaps exist out there, how can you fill the gaps, how do you exploit opportunities, how will you win?.
Institutions must be able to identify and segment their target audience. There are vast differences amongst people,background, needs, wants, behaviours, inclinations etc.
Segmentation will help an institution to determine the best way to meet your target audience, to determine the best way to connect to them and the appropriate method of communication. You must be strategic to position yourself. You must know what programmes to deliver to which target audience. Bear in mind that there are rural and urban population, that there are age, gender, education, income differences, lifestyle, social class and behavorial differences.
Therefore, you must carefully target which of the identified population you are interested in, age, location, gender etc. You must position and find a niche in the minds of a particular audience and fill it with something that sticks to their mind. What makes you different in the minds of the people? What are your selling points.
Most importantly, and in most cases, it depends on how you have communicated value to the people. What are your values. Your programs and policies. How has it impacted on the different segments of society and how have you informed them about it. Are they aware. Are they fully abreast of what you are doing. What are your feedback mechanisms to know how the people are reacting.
It must be understood that when making choices, people gravitate towards what they know and trust. Here, the best way to build trust is to show genuine understanding and concern for the population. And gaining trust requires a subtle but important shift in the way in which you present yourself.
Address the pain and needs of the people, because only then will they be open to exploring what you have to offer.
Prince Eze Ugochukwu writes from Abuja. Nigeria.
