Establishing a more strategic role in PR practice: why, how and when?

Public relations firms committed to building their business in the current fiscal environment must reorient their services to be more strategic, according to an in-depth qualitative survey of 39 public relations practitioners and management consultants to the public relations industry conducted by Carrington Associates.

In January 1991, senior public relations professionals in the New York area were asked to answer six open-ended questions on the strategic role of public relations. Participants in the study ranged from senior executives at three of the world's largest public relations firms to presidents of mid-size firms and solo practitioners. Each offered responses that reflected his or her professional experience -- but there was almost unanimous agreement on several key points.

Of the PR professionals we queried, the overwhelming majority cited a need for public relations practitioners to shift from serving as implementers and technicians to being active policymakers who help client companies determine the needs of their different publics and select the best techniques and tools for achieving their public relations goals.

Ninety-six percent perceived a significant gap between public relations practitioners' and CEOs' view of the profession and weren't surprised that CEOs give public relations a higher return on investment than do their counterparts in the coporate communication department. Seventy-nine percent did not believe they practice strategic management when designing their programs.

Agreement: Management and

PR pros see need for strategic

capabilities

The survey respondents affirmed a need to correct their bias toward mechanics and a "specialist's view of the public relations mission rather than a holistic view of company strategy." Through our research, it became clear that public relations practitioners want to have input in developing management strategy. Many believe they lack the strategic training required to be a player in senior management/client decision-making. They cite their own need for different educational and professional experience.

The respondents offered a number of suggestions on ways the public relations industry can develop strategic capabilities:

* changes in public relations undergraduate and graduate education (36 percent)

* improving on-the-job training for practitioners (30 percent)

* redefinition of the profession (18 percent)

* recruitment of executives "from other areas" to work in public relations (16 percent)

* rotation of public relations professionals between staff and line positions (2 percent)

* more creative educational programs from public relations professional organizations (2 percent)

* a forum for CEOs and public relations practitioners (2 percent)

As New York public relations practitioners and management consultants to the industry were bemoaning their strategic shortcomings, we decided to look at the flip side: what the IABC Research Foundation and PR professionals are doing to promote conceptual advances and innovative practice in public relations. Is the reorientation called for in our study indeed already beginning?

One of the most influential signs that public relations is shifting to a more strategic realm is reflected in th results of the largest research project ever undertaken in the history of the industry. The IABC Research Foundation's multi-year, multi-country U.S. $400,000 research project involved in-depth interviews with more than 200 CEOs in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. The study, "Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management," will be released in two different book formats in the spring of 1992 and already has caught the attention of CEOs both on the agency and corporate sides.

The objective of the "Excellence" study is to probe how and to what extent public relations contributes to the bottom line of an organization and to determine how the communication function must be organized and managed to make an organization more effective. The research concludes that public relations is managerial function rather than a technical support activity and that "excellent" public relations is an integral part of the overall strategic management of an organization.

How 'Excellence' study can

advance profession

The IABC study advances the field by providing a new definition of public relations practice. Based on findings, the research team has determined that "Excellent public relations" has a conflict mediation orientation and requires the establishment of two-way communication between an organization and its publics. This "two-way symmetrical model" (as described by leading members of the IABC Research Foundation research team, headed by James E. Grunig, Ph.D.) conceptually separates public relations from marketing as a business function.

For instance, senior counselor Paul Forbes of the Forbes Group now bills clients for his time conducting research to apprise them of early warning signs that indicate the need to shift their organizations' strategic direction. He is also diretly involved in developing clients' business policy. This is a dramatic change from a decade ago when the Forbes Group sold media relations services and little else.

Forbes credits the shift away from a tactical positioning (media relations) of his company and toward a strategic one (industry consulting based on behavioral science) to the impact of accelerating technology, and the new communication needs of client companies caused by flattening of the corporate organizational structure.

E.W. Brody, professor of public relations and public relations counselor, offers another form of strategic counsel. Brody believes that the fragmentation (in some instances the shrinking) of the press is one of the many forces determining that "messages" for various publics are most effectively transmitted through other means. For example, work-place environment (companies are judged by the environment they create for workers and the greater community), corporate behavior (people are more concerned with what companies do than with what they say) and quality (no amount of public relations will gloss over the gap between promise and delivery) all have a powerful impact on the public. According to Brody, the strategic twist is that now corporations look to communicate through direct mediation with their publics rather than through the filter of the printed and electronic press.

Another innovator in public relations is The Omega Group President John Budd, who uses an interdisciplinary team approach to assist his clients in addressing public policy issues. Budd has assembled a consortium of 61 senior professionals in 23 disciplines to "play 'what if' with the CEOs" of his client companies. Budd feels that traditional public relations alone is not enough to solve complex problems. He says, "The public relations practitioner's role is to act as an intellectual catalyst and interlocutor for decision-makers at the top." This, Budd is defining the PR practitioners' role as part of the think-tank top team.

PR curriculum needs to

look at business

Many of the public relations professionals who participated in the Carrington Associates survey emphasized the need to teach public relations as a business function -- that there is more to the business than writing press releases and pitch letters. Innovations in some of the leading MBA programs demonstrate that educators -- and future business managers -- will be well aware of the far-reaching capabilities of a stragegic public relations programs.

One of the first public relations courses for an MBA program has been developed by advertising and communication consultant and Harvard Business School Professor Stephen A. Greyser. "Corporate Communications," an elective offered to second-year students only, was conceived as a result of Professor Greyser's conviction: "As a trend-line, there is no question that CEOs and senior management are spending more time dealing with external constituencies and that this activity is of great concern to boards." Clearly, as public relations is framed in the context of strategic business issues, any stigma that it is a service that "takes marching orders" will disappear.

That these points are clearly understood in the U.K. is made evident by a recent study by British academics in the field of management and public relations which states, "Public relations can, if permitted, play a valuable part in the formulation of corporate policy and strategry. ... The paramerters of public relations are far wider than is generally appreciated." Further, one of the study's chief recommendations is that public relations be recognized as a management discipline which should be included in all business strategy and management courses (see sidebar).

With the IABC Research Foundation's prioneering "Excellence" study, the concepts, models, and applications that comprise a more strategic definition of public relations will be available to a broad spectrum of practitioners. Our research demonstrates that public relations professionals are ready to use the "Excellence" study to reorient their own practices.

Judith Carrington is president of Carrington Associates, a New York public relations firm specializing in communication strategy formulation.