PR-Bridge

Jim Collins shot to worldwide acclaim with his 2001 bestseller Good to Great. For years the book sat atop or near the top of the national bestseller lists, selling more than 1 million copies in hardback alone. Thirty seconds ago, I checked to see the book’s place on Amazon’s list and it stands at #63 among all books sold. For business readers, Good to Great sparked a Harry Potter-like frenzy. It changed the way books are marketed and the way people speak about business topics. No one should be surprised by the number of red-covered books lining the shelves in the business section of the local bookstore.

In a recent issue of Fortune (The 100 Best Companies to Work For,” 2/2/09), Collins emerges to participate in a Q&A that provides his assessment of the business world in today’s troubling times. Interestingly, Collins’ next book will address how companies survive when the world spins out of control.

Interestingly, the terms “advertising,” “marketing,” and “public relations” do not appear in the index of Good to Great. Perhaps one should imagine that like many management gurus, Collins has little interest in these disciplines, setting his sights instead on the C-suite. However, reading the rather short Q&A, there is a nod to communications that the general reader might pass over.

When asked what companies do to get through difficult times, Collins responds: “No. 1, in times of great duress, tumult, and uncertainty, you have to have moorings.” He cites P&G, GE, J&J, and IBM as those with “an incredible fabric of values, of underlying ideals or principles that explained why it was important that they existed.”

Aha! What an empowering moment for the often trod upon communications team, particularly the overworked and understaffed internal communicators. Collins explains, “What we have found is that what really matters is that you actually have core values–not what they are…You need to preserve them consistently over time.”

In my experience, it is the internal communications team that is focused on implementing what Collins outlines. Obviously, it is impossible to do if the CEO and the management team are not in agreement. But, when the execs and communicators that support them work together to spread the values message throughout an organization, great things happen.

What I find in the classroom and many textbooks and other publications is a overly simplistic view of internal communications. Students and others default to a definition of internal comm as “keeping the employees happy.” What I attempt to convince them is that the objective is several levels deeper: educating employees about the goals and aspirations of the organization and its leaders and showing them how their individual work helps the overall organization meet those goals. This difference is more than just fancier words and semantics. In teaching tomorrow’s professionals, the ability to go beyond easy answers is critical.

The part about “values” is just one paragraph in the Collins Q&A and because he does not have any particular insight into how internal communications works inside an organization, he quickly moves to tagging “talent” as the other piece of the puzzle. However, even within his discussion about great companies hiring the best people, the value of internal communications shines through.

Collins discusses Boeing after World War II, reeling because its military production fell to almost nothing. Rather than go under, Boeing’s leader Bill Allen advocated applying what the company learned making militar aircraft to the commercial plane business. Boeing’s employees rallied, according to Collins, in “the sense that they were all creating something together,” even though an outsider might have labled it crazy.

The point Collins does not connect is that talented individuals – like the Boeing employees — understand the link between their success and the organization’s success. Some of that feeling is certainly the hallmark of bright, capable workers, but it is also in the glue that internal communicators create, essentially locking employees and aspirations together.

Strategic management gurus often talk about big-picture ideas, like “values,” and this rhetoric sounds really great in speeches or books. Tactically, however, organizations that are successful in building and living a mission statement understand that it takes more than just air to make it part of the culture. Collins did not mean to address the value of organizational culture in the Fortune piece, but those charged with maintaining culture should feel proud nonetheless. Outside the CEO’s office, there are few individuals with a more daunting task than those responsible for an organization’s culture.

The essay that follows is excerpted from my new book, The 2000s, an examination of popular culture’s role in shaping society in this decade. I am interested in studying the role of marketing (an umbrella term to encompass Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations) in shaping people’s perceptions. This piece argues that marketing plays a critical role in public education. Obviously, the notion flies in the face of the common perception of all marketing as evil, but I feel that like so many stereotypes, this one deserves closer examination. 

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Advertising’s pervasiveness, in some respects, actually opens doors to public discussion about marketing efforts and one’s place in the larger world. People use ads as a barometer for assessing their own values and role as citizens. Consumers also receive a great deal of educational information from companies through marketing campaigns. Bank of America, for instance, launched a new product in January 2005 called SafeSend that enabled Hispanic customers to remit money to Mexico free of charge. Previously, Hispanic customers had to use costly payday loan establishments or wire transfers to send money back to Mexico, which topped $20 billion in 2005

In examining Burrell Communications, a large African American-owned advertising firm, communications scholar Irene Costera Meijer sees client work that uses “positive realism” to show black consumers a view of life that is purposely thoughtful, engaging, and well-rounded. A McDonald’s ad created by Burrell that showed a successful black father visiting his child’s school, for instance, provides “a new story of responsible black male citizenship that can be the source of inspiration and guidance for men and women, whites and blacks.”

Meijer sees advertisements like this providing positive social impact. She explains that marketers should consider using positive images “that create so-called win-win situations, images which are good for the market and can change people’s ideas about themselves and hopes for society.” According to Meijer, advertising can provide valuable stories of what it means to live the good life, which are otherwise hard to find in mainstream media channels. “Such stories should be seen as part of the wide array of practices and technologies with which individuals nowadays have to constitute their sense of self as–among other things–citizens of ever expanding communities.”

Of all the disciplines falling under the marketing umbrella, none is more essential to the education process than public relations. As a business function, public relations is driven by the bottom line, but professionals, as opposed to charlatans who do little more than produce spin, fluff, and puffery, conduct themselves ethically. Their goal is to inform consumers about their clients’ products and services. Public relations perhaps shines brightest in crisis situations, when public education is most critical. The most important crises that public relations professionals handle are community disasters such as plane crashes, fires, explosions, and major workplace incidents.

President Obama and congressional leaders met today to discuss the “mammoth” $825 billion economic stimulus package. According to early reports, the necessary legislation is “on track” to pass by February 16 — Presidents Day. Although this is Obama’s first meeting with congressional leaders in his young presidency, much is on the line, perhaps even the new president’s place in history.

Imagine that Obama leads the nation out of the current depression/ recession (take your pick, though I believe we have already entered the former). If he achieves that monumental task he will be hailed as one of the nation’s greatest chief executives, right up there with Washington, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and Jefferson. Instantly.

The challenge Obama and the rest of the Washington, DC political infrastructure faces, however, is that fixing the economic mess is still going to be incredibly painful for otherwise hard working, honest, and upstanding people. Millions (perhaps tens of millions?) of citizens are going to be thrown under the bus at the expense of the larger whole.

Quite simply, many of the attempts at “fixing” the economy are bound to backfire, particulary when they add additional burdens to lower and middle class citizens. The nation has already witnessed this over the last several months when the Bush administration distributed the first $350 billion in relief to foundering financial institutions. The unfulfilled assumption was that the money would trickle down through the system, ultimately finding its way to those who needed help saving their homes or buying things. It did not work.

Let us hope that the new administration will develop novel ways to actually stimulate the economy, not prop up bloated corporations. In the meantime, business and governmental leaders will rely on the same old-hat means that rarely work, or simply outsource the economic burden to those most at risk during economic challenges.

A few examples:

Increased Fines and Fees — Florida’s state representatives met in a special session to cut Florida’s budget to make up for a $2.4 billion gap. One of its less creative measures included raising traffic fines and fees. While the added revenue from such fines may help, it is hard to imagine that this indirect tax against residents and tourists will do much more than increase general animosity. These programs have the greatest consequence for those individuals least able to pay increased fees and fines.

Downsizing — Companies are searching for quick fixes. Historically, laying off workers provides a bump up in stock price and a round of applause on Wall Street. The numbers are so large that they get dizzying, for example,  Microsoft downsizing 5,000 and Intel laying off 5-6,000 in recent announcements. Again, corporate executives relying on band-aids to stop arterial bleeding.

There is no way enact massive employee cuts without leaving behind a scared, overworked staff biding its time until the next round of layoffs, let alone cope with the psychological and financial terror that those 11,000 Microsoft/Intel employees face. That is 11,000 additional people who can’t buy the consumer goods that the government hopes will spark the economy, can’t make mortgage payments, and add to the unemployment rolls.

Foreclosure – These most dastardly stimulus “myth” is that the bailout package is going to actually help those in trouble save their homes. It is another vicious cycle scenario — rather than refinance in a manner that allows a person to stay in their house, banks foreclose, and then re-sell the place at a loss. One senses, though, that the rising anger about foreclosures is reaching a point at which people are ready to fight back. Read Ben Ehrenreich’s piece in The Nation for examples of people pushing against the traditional foreclosure system.

The writing on the wall seems pretty clear — traditional methods no longer work. The entire system must be re-calibrated. New rules are necessary. We need to turn our innovation inward to find unique means of creating a new form of capitalism.

For example, imagine the goodwill a team of corporate executives would generate if instead of laying off thousands of employees, they announced a plan to restructure their salaries and pooled the money to keep workers employed. A chief executive earning millions of dollars in salary, benefits, and stock options, in this case, would determine the salary he needed to live comfortably, then turn the rest into the employee pool. For some CEOs, they could forego salaries for years, given the countless millions earned in preceding years.

The bottom line is that $825 billion or $825 trillion will not matter for most people. The discussion is moot when 99 percent of the people one knows live a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. Sending $30 billion to save a failing bank or $600 or $1,500 to each person in the country, encouraging them to go out and buy things, is not going to save the economy. Imagine, one paycheck from economic ruin.

Led by team account director Alexandra Crews, our “Writing for Public Relations” class project resulted in a placement in the Bradenton Herald. Using Facebook, the students surveyed their peers to analyze how students are reacting to the current economic downturn, particularly during the holiday season.

The class had 11 students and broke into teams to complete each phase of the project, from initial brainstorming to finished and pitched release. The project gave the students some insight into how organizations market themselves and how the different tasks get accomplished.

http://www.bradenton.com/business/story/1092267.html

Friday, Dec. 12, 2008

College students face Christmas with empty pockets

By NICK WALTER - nwalter@bradenton.com

MANATEE — If you’re expecting a Christmas gift from a college student this year, that gift may be as simple as an e-card, a hug and a smile, or, perhaps, nothing at all.

For Caleb Benhan, a University of South Florida student at the Manatee-Sarasota campus who recently lost his job as a tutor for Manatee Community College students, it will be a slim Christmas.

It’s been hard for the 20-year-old English major to scrape up change for Christmas gifts for friends and family. Fortunately, Benhan has a backup plan: His birthday was Dec. 6, and he’ll use his birthday money to buy some Christmas gifts. ”This is the first time I’ve had a hard time finding gifts for people,” Benhan said. “And I can’t enjoy my (Christmas) break because I have to look for a job.”

Apparently, the recent economic downturn has left many local college students scrambling for ways to afford Christmas gifts. A recent survey by a group of undergraduate researchers from the school’s Public Relations Student Society of America Walter E. Griscti chapter confirmed that many students this year have near-empty pockets. The survey by USF students on Facebook showed that out of 250 responses, 83 percent said the economy is influencing their gift purchases. Forty-three percent plan to buy fewer gifts for friends and family.

Students who are buying are leaning toward cheaper gifts like plates of homemade goodies or gift certificates. ”I used to get gifts for my friends as well,” said Carlos Bardalez, a 24-year-old student at USF. “Now I’m just getting them for close family.”

Tina Sanchez, a USF senior, said she’ll have to cut the number of gifts she gives out in half. Sanchez, who works part time at the Manatee-Sarasota’s Life Long Learning Academy, will at least send out a Christmas card or e-card to cover as many friends and family as possible. “The key,” she said, “is to start early.”

USF student Mark Fisher, 26, from Toronto, agrees. Fisher said he had more success starting his Christmas shopping in the summer. “I bought my gifts in the summer when I had money,” Fisher said, “and I knew there wouldn’t be a rush so I could enjoy it more. I went to Best Buy, the Body Shop or Barnes & Noble … or the liquor store for my brother.”

Gina Lion, a 23-year-old USF student, began saving money throughout the year for gifts. “I also make plates of cookies, brownies and chocolate-covered pretzels,” Lion said. “Christmas is more about giving so I’m not going to stop giving just because the economy goes up and down.”

Earlier this week, AdvertisingAge reported on a talk by Procter & Gamble interactive marketing exec Ted McConnell, with the provocative title: “Digital Guru Not Sure Marketers Belong on Facebook.” Reacting to the attempts to “monetize” social media sites, McConnell explained, “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”

I discussed this issue in detail in early August, advocating that organizations move away from thinking of social media sites like they do television, radio, or billboards, and instead uncovering new ways of using social media to build relationships. McConnell also brought up this point, dispelling the “media” aspect of “consumer-generated media.”

“Who said this is media,” McConnell asked. “Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant…We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

Recently, USF public relations students in my Writing for Public Relations classes have been doing research on college students and attitudes toward branding, brand loyalty, and how they are dealing with the economic downturn. While I won’t divulge much of the information they’ve uncovered, since we’ll be releasing it over the next several weeks, I will reveal that the brands students are most loyal to interact with them in ways they desire, such as sending discount coupons through the mail, not by blitzing them with ads on Facebook and MySpace.

I also wonder if the rock band Pearl Jam might provide some lessons about how organizations should reach out to customers. At the height of its worldwide fame, the band stopped making videos and cut back on marketing, essentially removing themselves from the mainstream pop universe. While it shed casual fans, it built online communities of dedicated followers, even handing over control of its music. For instance, allowing people on fan sites to trade bootlegs legally.

As a result, Pearl Jam now has a large, dedicated group of fans that sell out every show and support its CDs. While it will probably never reach the heights it did with its first several albums, in terms of overall CD sales and radio play, one could argue that Pearl Jam is more popular than ever.

I think the answer lies somewhere in the idea of building a group of intense users and then figuring what that group wants from the brand and how to deliver it in the most efficient manner.

According to a recent AP article, some 10 million people in the United States are now jobless. The national unemployment rate stands at a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, according to government statistics. That number will increase, since several large employers announced new rounds of layoffs, including Ford and GM.

Certainly 10 million unemployed is a significant number – the highest in 25 years. Moreover, the “official” government statistics only tell part of the story when it comes to determining the national unemployment rate, which I discussed in a 2004 article, “The Downside of Downsizing” at The History News Network. These figures only count people actively searching for work, not those who have dropped from the search altogether. More telling in today’s economy, the figures also do not account for people who are underemployed — like a marketing exec, for example, forced to work part-time or in a service industry position to make ends meet.

What cannot be overlooked as the incoming Obama administration searches for ways to fix the ailing economy is that many of these 10 million unemployed people may never fully recover from the psychological devastation of getting downsized. The lack of humanity in the process is staggering, certainly considering the decades of experience corporations now have with mass layoffs. Anyone who has had experience with being laid off or interacting with family or friends who have can relate. Many honest, ethical, hard working people never shake the downsized stigma, carrying it around for the rest of their careers.

From an internal communications perspective, many companies assume that putting together a decent severance package heals the wound. One could argue, however, that putting a dollar figure on an employee’s tenure or work history merely accentuates the pain. For many, no amount of money can overcome the psychological pain, basically equating the job loss with feelings of inadequacy or worthlessness.

When laying off employees, organizations often resort to lawyer-speak in an attempt to thwart potential lawsuits. As a result, people are not provided with meaningful explanations of their termination. Corporate platitudes about stock price, redundancies, and other explanations do little or nothing to keep workers from hefting the psychological scars associated with being laid off.

Economic chaos is going to be the status quo for the immediate future. In response, we should do as much as we can to help those downsized to regain meaningful employment. If those positions are not readily available, then at least we can treat people with dignity, not like outcasts. A critical aspect of fixing the current economic troubles is getting people back to work. Rather than tossing those laid off overboard, the nation needs to find new ways to harness their experience and business knowledge.

Scholars will examine the 2008 presidential campaign for a long, long time. The money spent by each candidate guarantees this, particularly the tremendous advantage Barack Obama has wield in the battle with John McCain.

While most of the major polls — like Yahoo! with its scoreboard estimate of the popular vote and electoral college – have Obama winning easily (right now, Yahoo! declares Obama winning 51.6 percent to 44.3 percent), what no poll or polling group can account for is the deep-rooted racism of the American public. On the surface, the equation seems straightforward. If Obama wins by less than 6 percent (or, if McCain somehow emerges victorious), then I posit that many voters, in their heart of hearts, stood in the voting booth and simply could not vote for a black man for president.

The potential role of race in the election seems more compelling when one examines the latest information about the candidate voters think will do more for the economy and to change Washington. Despite McCain’s self-avowed “maverick” status,  voters claim Obama leads on these issues. Obviously, some undecided voters could walk into the booth and go with McCain based on his experience and foreign policy viewpoints. That may account for the close election, if it gets close. Race, however, is a more compelling explanation.

Throughout the election season, information about the potential racism and its consequences popped up irregularly. On NPR, for example, correspondents went into battleground states and spoke to party stalwarts. In West Virginia, some Democrats interviewed flatly said that they were uncomfortable with Obama because of race. A poll in that state identified that 25 percent of voters would not vote for Obama due to race. Other NPR interviews revealed voters concerned about “the Muslim issue” and Obama, insinuating that Obama was a Muslim, not Christian.

An article in the Dallas Morning News, “In Areas of Pennsylvania, Issue of Obama’s Race Remains,” discusses the potential fallout in areas of that key state that have traditionally voted Democrat. “People won’t make up their mind or say they are going to vote for Obama because they are afraid that they could vote for a black man,” said Phil McGrogan, a retired salesman who said he’d vote for Mr. Obama. “In some of the yards where I see signs that say ‘Another Democrat for McCain,’ I know the people and I know they are racists. I even told my wife, you can almost pick out the rednecks.” McGrogan had the guts to tell the reporter what many others either think or see in their own neighborhoods.

The reason a Dallas paper would venture into southwestern PA is due to the fallout generated by the area’s Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who referred to the western part of his state as “a racist area.” He later rescinded his comments, but for many the notion stuck.

Even the now famous Joe the Plumber resorted to coded language, criticizing Obama for tap dancing through an answer, ”Almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.” An Associated Press article lists several overtly racist ads run by pro-Republican groups, ranging from “a California group, which distributed anti-Obama literature with stereotypical black America images of a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken…[and] A Virginia GOP official said Obama would hire rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black.”

The race challenge is one that haunts surveys — people often either lie or tell the person conducting the survey what they think they want to hear. What potential voter is going to admit to a pollster that they are racist? To get at reality, many polls have gone to computer-generated systems that eliminate human interaction.

Polls are attempting to get at the center of the race issue, but not until tomorrow’s election will the real consequences be revealed. A recent AP-Yahoo News poll, for example, determined that 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks. Race may determine the outcome of the 2008 election, but whether it does or not, the results should show how far the nation still must travel to overcome its racial divide.

Rather than rallying around Sarah Palin, the soccer moms of the world should be uniting against the media’s portrayal of her as their unofficial leader. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: Sarah, I know many smart, engaging, intelligent soccer moms, and you’re not those soccer moms.

I cannot imagine what the Hillary Clinton voters see in Palin other than that she’s female. They are as opposite in worldview, education, and lifestyle as two people can be. The idea that women voters are going to automatically flock to McCain/Palin because of her presence on the ticket seems to mock the intelligence of female voters.

The media fallout post-debate is that Palin “held her own.” According to the Chicago Tribune: “She displayed the political strength we saw in her address to the Republican National Convention. She knows how to speak to America’s heart.”

Were the editorial board members listening to the same debate the rest of us were? ”Political strength” is not a phrase that most people would use to describe that show, but then one is hit with the AP report of a post-debate poll: 

“A CNN poll of 611 adult Americans who watched the encounter found 51 percent thought Biden did the better job in the debate, while 36 percent said Palin did. But an overwhelming 84 percent said Palin did better than expected.”

One line of thought here is that the expectations for Palin, after the dreadful performances in her Gibson and Couric interviews, were so low that she could do “better than expected” by merely speaking in semi-coherent sentences. But, did nearly 4 in 10 people really believe that she did better in the debate than Biden? 4 in 10! What about the other 13 percent. They couldn’t even decide? Results like this make me glad commentators like my friend Rick Shenkman are out there providing insight, like that found in his new book: Just How Stupid Are We?

One must wonder what the public finds so appealing about Palin. I heard one potential voter tell NPR that he liked her because she understood the middle class, since she was part of it, unlike the rest of the candidates. This is a plausible reason for the attraction. Another notion is that voters do not like “intellectuals,” an argument made so well by historian Richard Hofstadter many decades ago.

What scares many people, however, is Palin’s utter lack of knowledge of current events or anything outside her dogmatic worldview. And, at this point, there is plenty of ammunition for those who are fearful. In a recent Newsweek column, Fareed Zakaria, a really smart commentator discussed Palin’s utter lack of qualification for national office. He astutely points to her “vapid” answers to Couric’s questions, many of which were “nonsense.”

Zakaria quotes at length Palin’s answer to a question about the $700 billion bailout. In reponse to the question, Palin said, “I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the–it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it on the right track…”

Is this the kind of blathering we applaud? Would anyone grading Palin’s presentation in a high school or college class give her passing marks?

Yet, here we are about a month away from one of the most important presidential elections in history with potential voters jumping on the McCain/Palin bandwagon. Palin seems like the tens of millions of working and overworked mothers/women in America. She litters her speech with soccer momish phrases like, “you betcha,” sports a perky pulled-back hairstyle and funky glasses, and has that same strange middle America inflection in her voice, like one uses in pleading with children to clean up their toys people understand. But none of that makes her qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Haven’t the last eight years shown us the challenges of an underwhelming chief executive?

[This is another reply to Benita Steyn that I wrote in the ongoing discussion regarding PR theory at PR Conversations]

 My “approach” first and foremost is to avoid being explanatory or provide overarching definitions for topics under research. I see a much better approach in attacking a challenge through interrogation, exploration, and speculation. Too often, I think, scholars try too hard to give an answer or explain everything. 

My criticism of Dr. Grunig’s reliance on symmetry and the larger so-called Excellence Theory includes:  

– Attempting to define PR through Excellence actually made the field more self-reflective and insular. As a result, public relations is further alienated from inter-related disciplines and the broader academic community. PR scholars thus spend a lot of time spinning their wheels redefining PR and why it should be part of management, rather than tackling issues that impact practitioners. 

– Public relations can be ethical, effective, and important to an organization without the emphasis on “management” or where the top communicator sits in an organizational hierarchy. 

– All communications efforts (marketing, PR, and advertising) should be aligned to the organization’s overall strategic goals, as one would see in Hoshin planning. 

– Two-way symmetrical communications does not take into account the power relationships involved in the relationship between an organization and all its “publics.” Furthermore, the technological age makes it nearly impossible to talk about “publics” in any uniform manner. For true symmetrical communications to occur, one would have to have countless communicators constantly negotiating with various individuals and groups. 

– While communicators may have a deep knowledge of the environments inside and outside their organizations and facilitate discussions between audiences and the organization, their work is conducted to further the organization’s goals and objectives. Communicators are not society’s ombudsmen. 

– Communications research should be practical and applied. 

So, Benita, these are some of the ideas I have about communicators, but I’m not attempting to come up with an overriding “theory” of PR. You asked, so I jotted down some thoughts. 

I do not think it is advantageous to use a single theory to explain one’s worldview. We attempt to teach our students to be critical thinkers, then watch as scholars use postmodernism, Marxism, realism, etc. as the lens through which they see their world. Dr. Grunig and his followers have been so diligent in building the work into an “ism” that its muted work on other important areas or forced others to use it as their own lens. 

I don’t think that our basic ideas regarding PR are all that different, we’re just approaching some things from different vantage points. And, the differences are healthy and necessary. 

[And a follow-up post]

While it seems I’m the lone dissenting voice in this discussion, there are others in the field (both professionals and academics) who share similar feelings.

In Public Relations Theory II, edited by Carl Botan and Vincent Hazleton, the editors write, “Most scholars would agree that Symmetrical/Excellence Theory is, at least potentially, a paradigmatic theory. Most would also agree that it is the only such paradigmatic theory yet developed in public relations. This speaks well for the Symmetrical/Excellence folks, and ill for the rest of the field” (9).

And, “According to Kuhn (1970), theoretic paradigms frame and guide research in a field. However, they may also stifle and prevent the consideration of innovative ideas and theories. Regular and frequent public examinations of theories by scholars not directly tied to those theories may help a naturally polyparadigmatic field like public relations avoid the unhealthy condition of a lack of paradigmatic struggle.”

[My reply to the conversation as it turned to Dr. Grunig’s speech at The Institute for Public Relations: “After 50 Years: The Value and Values of Public Relations”] 

While not in the audience that evening, I’ve read Dr. Grunig’s speech many times on the Institute Web site. I don’t find any magic bullets in it. 

As a matter of fact, I think the speech reveals some of the faults of the Excellence work. Although I loved being a professional communicator and love teaching public relations even more to hundreds of students each year, I don’t see PR playing the role of the white knight swooping in to keep evil organizations from pillaging the public. 

Dr. Grunig advocates PR playing a do-gooder role based on symmetry that “helps society.” Yet, in his examples from the speech, take Ivy Lee and Rockefeller for instance, was Lee truly advocating for the public or rather for Rockefeller to take steps so that he ultimately achieved his objectives? And, I’m really looking forward to the day when some bright scholar calls Bernays out for his gimmickry and self-promotion, turning the supposed “Father of PR” into the “Father of Publicity,” which is a more accurate picture. But, I digress. 

Dr. Grunig also takes a rather elitist view of the standoff between his beloved “elite practitioners” and the lowly “mass of tacticians and technicians.” I think many professionals would lose their lunch if given that section of the speech.  

Dr. Grunig constructs a false fight between strategists and tacticians, but ultimately places the latter in the camp of “buffering” and those who “make decisions in isolation from publics.” Please, let the thousands of people teaching PR in on the secret to become an “elite practitioner” because I don’t want my students merely becoming one of the masses who “fly by the seat of their pants or simply do what employers or clients ask them to do.”  

Furthermore, what is the good, “bridging” strategist doing after whispering in the CEO’s ear, other than going back to a staff of lowly tacticians to implement that plan? 

And, while Fraser did not address this point, I’d like to ask why PR academics _automatically_ assume that as soon as one mentions any form of integrated communications that it means that PR must take a secondary/subservient role? The hangups over defining PR — for the millionth time — and posturing about its place as management or not management obfuscates the true meaning of integrated communications. Simply, that different communications divisions work together toward the goals and aspirations of the organization.