Effective communication in the workplace starts in a strategic war room. The war room, or command center for communication has historically been used to plan strategic campaigns, manage brands and design high-impact messages.
A war room enables work groups and teams to express ideas, and experiment with telling logical and memorable stories. This room is an ideal place to gather input to collaborate, build and develop powerful authentic stories. Today, effective communication in the workplace requires using war room planning.
What Is A War Room?
Here’s the dictionary definition. I wasn’t so sure when I first heard the word. So I looked it up in a couple of dictionaries and in Wikipedia.
war room
–noun
1. A room at a military headquarters in which strategy is planned and current battle situations are monitored.
2. Any room of similar function, as in a civilian or business organization.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
I also consulted the American Heritage Dictionary.
war room
n. A room in which strategic decisions, especially for a military or political campaign, are made. A war room is also referred to as command central.
According to Wikipedia, “the War Rooms” used by Winston Churchill were constructed in 1938 and used during World War II. These rooms included a Cabinet room where Cabinet meetings were held and a nearby Map Room where the course of the war was conducted.
Notice how maps, the visual display of information, are critical both historically and currently for planning an effective workplace communication strategy.
While your workplace communication may be unrelated to military operations of any kind, creating a separate communication planning room is a proven ingredient for success. Consider where you could use this to brainstorm ideas, organize actions, design brand messages and manage projects
