Good communication is all about story. Every organization has one, and connecting with your audience—knowing and caring about their needs and interests, finding where they intersect with yours—allows you to share it in a meaningful way.

Ideally, that intersection is where you both embrace a common vision, a dream of what you can accomplish together.

I remember the first time I watched Star Trek. It was in 1966; just shy of my fifth birthday, I was at my grandparents’ house while my teenage uncle watched “The Corbomite Maneuver,” one of the show’s earliest episodes. In it, the starship Enterprise encounters a moon-sized spacecraft that is inhabited by a single alien named Balok. Now, the real Balok was played by a young, cherub-faced Clint Howard. But his first reveal isn’t of a dimple-faced child; instead, he speaks through a truly creepy, cadaverous mannequin.

And it scared the crap out of me.

For the next four years, I gave Star Trek a wide berth—helped by a timeslot that was well past my bedtime. But then reruns landed in syndication, and a slightly older and wiser me eagerly reconnected with the Enterprise crew.

That connection has endured ever since.

Being a Trekkie (as Star Trek fans are called) was a greater challenge in the 1970s than it is today. There were no toys, no videos, no Internet websites—just a smattering of comics, models and the brilliant novelizations by the late James Blish. My first uniform was a yellow sweatshirt, my first phaser a coat hook, my first communicator two pieces of cardboard taped together. But they were enough to create my own stories.

And as I grew older, I began to write them down.

Star Trek is one of two major influences that made me a writer. The other is the works of C.S. Lewis, particularly his Space Trilogy and the Narnia series. Both influences showed me a canvas where images of vision and hope, faith and failure, sacrifice and morality and pure adventure could be painted in words. Here there be not dragons, but dreams.

Star Trek, Narnia and the like are, in essence, modern myths. Keep in mind that a myth is not the same thing as a lie. A lie is specifically intended to deceive the listener. A myth is a tale that, while all or partly fiction, aims to deliver a true insight.

Lewis once wrote, “[Myth] gets under our skin, hits us at a level deeper than our thoughts or even our passions, troubles oldest certainties till all questions are reopened, and in general shocks us more fully awake than we are for most of our lives.”

As a published author, I’ve had the humbling privilege of creating myth—including, to my pleasure and astonishment, writing for the television show that started it all. This month, the award-winning online series Star Trek Phase II will film an episode written by me.

Of course, in PR and communications, creating myths is not an acceptable strategy. Public relations must rely upon true tales accurately and honestly told. But that doesn’t mean such stories cannot attain the goal of myth—to awaken the audience, to generate dialogue, to build understanding and move toward a common vision.

We are a race that finds hope in dreams, a people that thrives on story.

What’s yours?

When I was in college, I joined a bunch of fellow runners for a race on Mackinac Island, a small, turtle-shaped landmass between the two Michigan peninsulas. After the run, my best friend and I decided to take an airplane tour.

As I sat at the controls alongside the pilot, high above the island, I asked him how difficult it was to fly a small plane. He had me place my hands on the wheel in front of me.

“Got it?” I nodded, not sure what he had in mind. I soon found out: He released his controls, turning around to converse with my friend in the back.

I was flying the airplane.

Almost immediately we began to lose altitude, and the plane gradually veered toward the great expanse of Lake Huron. I was an aviator for all of about 15 seconds, at which point the real pilot, chuckling at my terrified expression, regained control.

We were never really in danger, of course. But the pilot was the only person in that cockpit who knew how to read the gauges, what actions to take and how to land us safely. My lack of knowledge and skill quickly deflected us from our goal.

In working with the news media, a lot of organizations are doing what that pilot did—turning over their messaging to unskilled, uninformed strangers, rather than flying the airplane themselves.

A wise friend and PR colleague has often said, “If you don’t speak for yourself, others will gladly speak for you.” We see it happen time and again, when organizations face major questions from reporters and respond with … silence. And so the media turn to others they deem experts, usually people who know far less than they think they do. That leads to rumors becoming facts, speculation becoming certainty. It also carries great risk of angering or unsettling important audiences, from investors to policymakers to employees.

The hijacking of one’s story is far more difficult to resolve after the fact. Indeed, an organization may have to live with the falsehood forever, despite every effort to correct it.

(While not an example of a company stonewalling the media, it’s refreshing to see how the makers of Tide laundry detergent turned a spoof article published in The Onion into a bit of video fun that benefits their brand. Read about it here.)

Organizations need to own their issues and their message. They must quickly take back control of the airplane from self-appointed copilots—or, ideally, don’t give it up in the first place. Even if there are sound business and legal reasons for not commenting on some topics, a thoughtful and strategic communication plan can help manage speculation and discredit the ill-informed soundbites of others.

It’s all about keeping the plane in the air.

Integrity, so goes the old saying, is what you do when no one’s looking. And as the world becomes increasingly transparent, everybody’s peeking through the windows.

So why are so many companies in financial angst ejecting communications staff and activities, the very people and strategies that can articulate corporate integrity and help build (or rebuild) reputation?

There are plenty of theories. One is that some of these companies don’t have a good story to tell. Another is that management sees little chance of communicators influencing skeptical audiences, so why bother trying? A third is that company leaders don’t view communications as a key business strategy, but rather a patch employed whenever the balloon springs a leak.  Yet another is that management woefully underestimates the impact of reputation, insisting that “making the numbers” in the next quarter is the only thing that matters.

The messages of reputation and integrity are being reduced to pretty hallway posters of windswept mountains, orange-purple sunsets and dewy leaves, all resting on a line of poetic thought.

No wonder the window-peepers don’t like what they see.

I’m not suggesting, as some do while frothing into any available microphone, that all corporations lack integrity. I have had the privilege of associating with many companies that actually cared about their employees, their customers and their communities. (And a fair number that didn’t.)

In my view, the heart of the problem is leadership’s lack of understanding of the strategic value of communications. They often don’t learn it in business school, they only see the expense line on a spreadsheet, and while they might acknowledge the increasing importance of reputation in the minds of customers, they think a nice mission statement and a sincere face covers it.

I’ve seen the immense damage, both internally and externally, that’s done to organizations (not just businesses) when communications isn’t part of the strategic mix. Conversely, I’ve seen the power of frank, truthful, open communication in building morale, improving business and establishing a positive reputation.

So long as an organization truly cares about integrity and demands it of every employee and function, there’s a story to tell that people want to hear. Communicators are uniquely positioned to tell it.

The late advertising executive Charlie Brower once said, “The expedient thing and the right thing are seldom the same thing.” When it comes to the role of communications, it’s advice well worth considering in the C-suite.