Crisis Management

Following up on our Crisis Management lecture, I’ve picked up a book by Michael Regester and Judy Larkin. It bears a title “A Casebook of Best Practice”, and truly the recommendations and advice are very clear and down-to the point – like in your average cookbook.

The book is divided into 2 parts, Risk Issues Management and Crisis Management. The first 6 chapters are all about precaution – how to identify the potential risk areas, how to deal with popular public perceptions, what to do with activists and “advocacy groups”.

Also, special attention is paid to CSR , as the authors explain all benefits of successful CSR strategy and introduce (at least to me) such term as Socially Responsible Investment (SRI).

The authors also look at the Issue Management (defined as “proactive, anticipatory and planned process designed to influence the development of an issue before it evolves to a stage which requires crisis management.”)

What I really loved about the book is its highly practical approach. Abundance of examples and case studies is fascinating, even though most of them date back to 1990s or even 80s.

The importance of planning to manage the crisis seems to be the key recommendation Michael and Judy aim to deliver to the readers by all means. Specifically, the process involves audience definition, procedure development, training, testing, and risk audit.

According to the authors, three fire brigades are required for identification and prevention of a potential crisis: the Core Committee (directors with individual responsibilities such as “people”, “incident status”, “product supply”), the Crisis Control Team (located at the site of the crisis), and the Crisis Prevention Team (to ensure the crisis doesn’t happen in the first place).

Also, there is a need for a fully equipped “war room”. The members are recommended to have rehearsed their responsibilities and have a role-substitute in case someone is away. Moreover, there are even recommendations for choosing the right members for each team based on their personalities (“the doom merchant”, “the book-keeper”, “the humanist”).

After all, modern life calls for “planning for the unexpected”. Environmentalists, human rights activists, trade unions (often advised by our key competitors) need to be dealt with on a regular basis. Thus, appointing in-house key players to manage the risk issues sounds like a very sensible idea – it will help to avoid the stress and turmoil when the crisis hits.

Having a prompt and well-prepared response in a crisis situation will aid the company’s reputation tremendously.

References:

Regester, M and Larkin, J (2005) Risk Issues and Crisis Management, Third Edition, CIPR, Kogan Page, London and Sterling, VA

Grunig and diversity. Read Harvard Business Review!

I am continuing reading Excellence in Public Relations and Effective Organizations.

While, as a whole, I find the book quite deep for such a theory-lacking field as PR, I have to say that the points risen seem to me quite general and may be applied to any organization employing women rather than strictly a PR firm or a department. I am not being too original with this critique, here’s a much better example of a comment:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4422/is_4_18/ai_77010728 [1]

Anyway, what I admire about the Grunig family (apart from their enviable capability of working side-by-side and still staying married to each other) is their practice of extensive research.

I really loved some of the findings titled “Qualitative Results Related to Gender and Diversity”. Basically, the survey conductors interviewed top communicators of various PR specializations trying to find out something more sophisticated than conventional wisdoms like a woman has to be twice as good as a man to succeed, etc.

To be precise, according to the authors, the results of this survey provided ” an insight into how the process of creating conducive conditions for both the public relations function and for women occur in excellent organizations.”

So, a few interesting thoughts:

“The top communicator at the heart health organization…deplored women’s “whining” about their status. …She proposed that women start behaving like the top executives do. She suggested reading the Harvard Business Review, in particular. Without taking such action, she contended, it is women’s own failure when they fail to become part of the management team. ”

Now, girls, what do you think?

Another respondent suggested that women should not make a big deal out of… being women. I hope she didn’t mean we should drink regular Coke and smile invitingly to secretaries.

According to the authors, the focus group participant said,” It’s just kind of doing business work and not paying attention to the fact that you’re a female and everyone around you is male.”

Where does this” top communicator at a statewide public utility” come from? You see, here in the UK we keep hearing about LACK of men in PR. Where has she got this “everyone around you” to deal with?

On a more serious note, the author poses a question. How will we bring the famous female approach to PR if we start fighting our normal feminine behavior? Mary Kay Ash is quoted in the book, and she doesn’t like this concept of an “effort to imitate men”.

Then the authors go into basic organizational techniques to empower diversity such as Promotion from Within or Awareness or Diversity Training Programs. We have heard about

them before.

To cut a long story short, L.Grunig and J.Grunig believe that empowering diversity and giving more managerial roles to women will bring positive change to communication and PR fields and add to excellence of an organization.

[1] Actually, the critique refers to another book by Larissa Grunig, "Women in Public Relations: How Gender Influences Practice", but the ideas described are quite the same as in the book I am mentioning.

Grunig & PR departments. Learn to delegate!

I spent my lazy Christmas afternoons enjoying non-stop feasts with my family and reading two good pieces of literature simultaneously. With one of the two being a Russian edition of Cosmopolitan, the other just had to be “serious”. We’ve heard all about it, but just in case you haven’t got your hands on this book yet, here’s a quick update:


In their Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management the famous academic couple of James and Larissa Grunig investigate how excellent Public Relations determine overall “excellence” of organization. What is the real value of PR to an organization?


Key elements of their theory are grouped into five parts:


Part 1: Excellent PR departments (14 characteristics)
Part 2: Excellent communication programs (planning, implementation, evaluation)
Part 3: Excellent organization and management of a PR department
Part 4: Excellent PR = excellent organization? (how PR helps reach big targets)
Part 5: PR value (monetary!) – how to measure?


Now, looking at the title of my blog you might be wondering how our glamorous PR women fit into the Grunig theory of excellence.


Let’s start with the departmental level:


As it was discovered by the authors, “women in public relations represent a bargain for an organization that employs them”. Specifically, women fulfill dual roles of “staff support” and a “technician”. One top communicator at an economic development agency, quoted by the authors, said that “Females are expected not only to write press releases but type the envelopes and get the stamps, when we could be spending our time doing managerial work”[1].


In fact, we don’t mind stamping envelopes. As long as the male colleagues are busy making cappuccinos.


However, the authors claim there is a clear tendency of shifting female roles in Public Relations towards “manager” rather than “technician”.


Numerous surveys, carried out over the last 25 years and described in the book, show that in public relations men are performing managerial work “(e.g., expert prescriber, problem-solving process facilitator, and communication facilitator)” more frequently.”Men were especially active with regard to strategic planning and policy decision-making.”[2]


Further surveys suggest this state of affairs has very little to do with years of professional experience (against the common stereotype that “there are more managers among men as they tend to have more experience than women”).


According to L. Grunig (2001), an interesting argument was made by focus group participants. It was suggested that women end up combining technical work with managerial task only because they fail to delegate as often and as effectively as men.
I tend to agree with this idea.


The authors’ key conclusion here is the following: “Women may have less opportunity than men to gain strategic expertise because of the time they must spend doing technical tasks.”


That’s some food for thought. We all know delegating is a useful skill, but now it plays a simply tremendous role. Our resolution to start delegating and to stop nurturing others may boost our career in PR (in a long run).


P.S. “Women must tread the line of being very confident and express their views, but avoid the “bitch” label”, says a top communicator in the state arts organization[3].


[1] Grunig J., Grunig L.,, Dozier. Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations. 2002. p.187
[2] A survey of 44 PR practitioners working for the 91 school districts in South Carolina (1997). Quoted by Grunig J., Grunig L.,, Dozier. Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations. 2002.
[3] Ibid. p.188

Be a man. Join Public Relations forces.

Men are offered PR scholarships ... what next?

Bill Sledzik, an associate professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kent State University (Kent, Ohio), suggested founding a new scholarship for male applicants wishing to enter Public Relations programs[1].

Now, initially, it may sound ridiculous (it certainly did to me). Nevertheless, the logic behind Bill’s speculations is transparent: 1) men are underrepresented in PR (it’s common knowledge now); 2) there is strong need to balance-out the F/M ratio in the field in order to provide clients with different approaches and techniques; 3) so, why not encourage men to go into Public Relations by giving them a scholarship? There are scholarships for minorities at almost every school, so the concept is already established in our society. Taking such a step might seem like a reasonable idea.

Professor, let me disagree with you here. Firstly, men are not a minority. They just don’t feel like joining the club. There are no barriers preventing them from working in Public Relations.
Just because men are literally outnumbered by women in PR they are considered a minority. Yes, by head-count there are more girls than boys. And, yes, I know that 70 to 90% of PR students are ladies. However, the best jobs in PR are taken by men, they climb their career ladders in PR faster, and that’s a fact[2].

Besides, what is the ratio of men who achieved significant financial results in PR vs. all men who entered the field? And what is the same ratio for women?

Men are treasured and spoilt in this industry. By creating such a scholarship we once again make life harder for ourselves (we shall struggle with our school fees, while the gentlemen would enjoy living-off the above-mentioned scholarships – not because they are smarter, simply because they are men). Additionally, with this move we are making sure that women will stay at their entry-level positions for good, adding to the existing gap in salaries between male and female PR practitioners.

Moreover, by offering scholarships as an incentive for men to enter PR programs we’ll attract only those men who wouldn’t have considered such a degree otherwise and thus wouldn’t be the best candidates for the profession. Do we really need them?

Instead, we need to focus on encouraging men become PR practitioners rather than paying them for it. Thus, I agree, a PR campaign to attract men to the industry would be a great solution. As well as starting recruiting programs tailored especially for guys. With the bespoken eloquence, charm, and cold temper men are an asset to the field, and we know it.

However, there is one final argument that made me your ally, professor. It was one made by Elizabeth Toth, and quoted in your blog. She is right when she explains women’s massive success with PR by the fact that all the men simply have left – no matter how sorry I am, I have to agree.

It is not fun to win when the strongest contestants have never entered the game. Bringing more guys to the business will make it tougher for women to succeed. But it will also bring new insights into the field, and improve our problem-solving level dramatically. So, come on, we can take it!

[1] http://toughsledding.wordpress.com/2006/11/13/diversity-in-public-relations-could-use-a-fresh-perspective-from-men/

[2]
A Comparison of Roles Played by Men and Women in Public Relations.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED188217&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED188217