Ever wonder what corporate communications was in 1962? It’s not that different from today.
Just look at the season two finale of Mad Men, the critically acclaimed TV show about Madison Avenue advertising men in the early ‘60s. The show depicts jaw-dropping sexual harassment, workplace drinking and smoking (before noon!) and—yes—even corporate communications.
In this episode, the characters, who work at Sterling Cooper ad agency, endure two anxious weeks where the Cuban missile crisis—the end of world—coincides with the company’s merger with a larger British agency—the end of the employees’ worlds.
Only a select few know about the merger so when management starts auditing every department at Sterling Cooper the rank and file employees grow worried. And when they’re not worrying about their jobs, attention shifts to the imminent threat of nuclear war.
Without solid information about the missile crisis and the merger, fear goes unchecked and anxiety runs rampant. At the time, newspapers, radio and TV covered the missile crisis, but not to the dizzying extent media would today. If the Cuban missile crisis occurred now cable networks would have boats of pundits floating alongside the Russian warships.
The media landscape has changed immensely since 1962; however, at certain organizations internal communications remains largely the same.
Fast forward 40-years to another fictitious ad agency, this one in Joshua Ferris’s darkly humorous novel And Then We Came to the End. The novel details the summer of 2001 at a Chicago ad agency. Dot coms are busting, ad revenue is withering and agencies started firing employees en masse.
As in Mad Men, anxiety reaches a fever pitch thanks to the company’s non-existent internal communications.
Although Mad Men and And Then We Came to the End depict fictitious ad agencies, the story for countless employees remains the same during today’s economic crisis. They are uncertain of their jobs; management isn’t communicating; anxiety starts breeding.
Ragan.com has carried stories about companies communicating well during this financial crisis; unfortunately, there are certainly many more organizations failing to communicate.
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Posted on September 22, 2011 22:35
I just watched the final episode of Madmen last night via DVR. I was just a young pup when this show is set, but I do recall the panic about the missile crisis, those were dark and frightful days.
A great metaphor for what some of the execs at Sterling Cooper were going through.
I've experienced it both ways. Early in my career I found about the sale of the broadcast group I was working for, at a sporting event of all places and quite by accident. Never remotely saw it coming.
When I asked new management, the mantra was "Don't worry, it isn't broke and we're not going to try and fix it." I believed them, turned down another job offer then got canned two weeks before Christmas the same year.
HO HO HO.
A decade or so later I went through another aquisition process, I was more senior in the food chain and it involved a Fortune 300 company. In this case, the process was extremely transparent. Because we were doing the aquiring and still remembering my past experience, the team went to great lengths to inform and soothe anxieties.
But the example set at the fictional Sterling Cooper remains true in too many places today.
Certainly much has changed in the way men and women are treated, the technology, the smoking and the office drinking but not everything. As in communication or lack thereof.
Although the drinking part, at least once a while, might be cool.
:)
Posted by Brian | October 28, 2008 2:19 PM
Posted on October 28, 2008 14:19
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