If there’s one thing we’ll be focusing on during 2025 above all others then it’s likely to be moving beyond media training.
It’s like this. A bit less than a couple of decades ago my daughter came home from school and announced they’d done history and there were Romans. A couple of weeks later I asked whether they’d done any more history and she looked exasperated, said: “I told you, we did history – there were Romans!”
She loves it when I tell stories like that.
I was reminded of it while I was doing a little research on reactions when the PR community puts the idea of media training to their clients (vested interests bit: they will often involve me and sometimes my colleague Paul on cameras). One particularly interesting contact told me she would often get answers from CEOs like: “I did media training when I was a manager, why would I want to do it again?” The answer is that they might not realise it but they need to go beyond media training as they had it.
Reluctance to go ahead
Theyr reluctance to go beyond their initial training makes sense on three conditions. First, you have to assume that the CEO themselves will not have changed since they were a manager. None of this “experience” nonsense, no expectations from anyone that their responses might be a bit more sophisticated than they were. Second, you have to assume the media hasn’t changed. So as long as their initial training will have briefed them on social media storms, touched on the potential importance of BlueSky and soforth, they’re fine. Except of course it won’t.
Oh and the third one is that if the older media training is done and the box ticked, they’d better be sure the messages they’re delivering haven’t changed and evolved. And frankly if your messages haven’t evolved over the last decade or so then you have a bigger problem than one that can be addressed through a training session.
A good trainer will ensure someone is tested on their current message They’ll be sensitive to and aware of the current environment, not one that existed in 2004 or something, and they’ll tailor the training according to the person in front of them, not a younger and less experienced version – and they’ll make sure a lot of the communications techniques on offer go way beyond “media” and help with talking to other stakeholders.
If the “trained 20 years ago and unlikely to be ready for the current environment” person sounds like your client, I’d be happy to have a chat about how my team might be able to help.
