Excel Award recipient: William Gallagher interview

Communication World, Sept, 1996 by Gloria Gordon

Gallagher received the Excellence in Communication Leadership (EXCEL) award at this year's international conference in Dallas, June 17. The EXCEL award is given by IABC to a non-IABC member who leads the way in fostering - and participating in - good communication. EXCEL award winners support communication and public relations and their organizations reflect that support in their outstanding communication work. IABC's EXCEL award is the highest award given to a nonmember, who is frequently a chief executive in a major company.

GG: What is your preferred style of personal communication?

GALLAGHER: My preferred management style, or preferred style of personal communication, is one-on-one.

But with a large organization, we frequently bring four or five groups of staff members together in sections within the factory. With small-sized groups we can have a much more interactive session.

Big groups tend toward one-way communication, but I prefer interactive communication. Listening to the staff is important.

GG: If a communication strategy, or key messages, are developed from a central location, how are they conveyed through your international market?

GALLAGHER: As a specific function, we see communication as very much integral to everyone in the business.

By world standards we're relatively small, with 300 people on our New Zealand side, and about 400 people outside the country.

This includes companies that we partly own, so that's about 18 companies.

Many of our executives - account managers or product managers - may be responsible for communication, but they're also responsible for the business marketing function. And I deal directly with some of the markets, as well.

We also have strategy meetings and management meetings. We have international conferences where we discuss where we're going, what we're trying to achieve. We have employee participation at all levels. I don't wish to just stand up in front and give an address. We want feedback. When we hear of a success, we frequently ask the successful ones to share with others their accomplishments.

GG: How frequently do you have these meetings?

GALLAGHER: About twice a year. In fact, during our recent travel, we had meetings in Europe, Denmark and Costa Rica. In Denmark, we got our European people together. In Costa Rica we had all the Americas represented.

In the next two weeks we'll have another meeting with our Asian-Pacific people.

In September, we get the entire worldwide group together in New Zealand. We do this only every second year; the cost of travel being a significant factor.

GG: You seem to have created a very hands-on personal style of communicating. How do you develop this? Especially with such a diverse market?

GALLAGHER: I guess I've probably grown with the business. We started off very small, and as the company expanded, I've grown with it.

GG: Have you had any formal training in communication strategy?

GALLAGHER: Only brief sessions on media relations. We had an economic summit conference at one time in New Zealand - and that was really a half-day to one-day seminar on the subject. But no long-term, formal courses.

GG: What is your educational background?

GALLAGHER: Engineering is where I started, and believe it or not, mechanical engineering!

GG: How did you evolve from being an engineer to a business communicator with such excellent communication capabilities?

GALLAGHER: I went through one of the business programs in Harvard, and I've certainly found that very helpful.

GG: With such a diverse market, not just electronic fencing for agricultural use, but also for game parks and environmental use, have you developed a marketing/communication plan that can apply to all these markets? Or do you develop plans for specific markets?

GALLAGHER: We're a specialty. But I've been very fortunate in getting together many of our distributors who also are entrepreneurs of relatively small organizations. One of our objectives is to become the most exciting and profitable line that they handle. This is how we become the major part of the business.

It's really a case of communicating their success to those who are less successful. Much can be accomplished by getting all these employees into one location and having a full and open interchange.

GG: How do you find and develop new markets?

GALLAGHER: Fortunately, we like traveling. And we find that success in some markets quite often translates to success in other areas. This certainly applies in some of the later markets, such as Africa. We've been in southern Africa and east Africa. The wildlife conservation movement is very much an international organization, or an international community. Where we succeed in Kenya, that's applied in Tanzania, and that's applied in the Ivory Coast as well as other areas. I find frequently the more successful ones are the ones that really come and find us.

GG: Other than public relations, communication and marketing, do you do paid advertising?

GALLAGHER: Only in specific markets - and not internationally, generally. But once we get to each individual market, we certainly do. We've also run international wildlife conferences in the past.