A Potentially Powerful Marriage

by Gary M. Katz, APR
President, CEO and Founder, CommPros Group

April 2005

Executive Summary

Overview

* The terms "public relations" and "communications" are used interchangeably in this paper, and also can potentially describe a number of related functions in an integrated marketing process, including corporate marketing, marketing communications, corporate communications, employee communications, investor relations, channel communications and more.

While many public relations (PR) and communication practitioners* have significant influence and power when crafting the communications and images they release to the external world, most are unfortunately still removed from the decision-making process. With this limited involvement in corporate policy, PR professionals often end up as no more than mouthpieces for management—frequently causing the messages they create to be incongruent with how the organization actually performs.

Communication professionals could be more effective contributors and facilitators of change if they were more involved in the architecture and strategic decisions of organizations. By integrating organization development (OD) thinking and tools into their practice of public relations, they will discover how to effectively increase their influence, level of strategic involvement, and value to their organizations or clients.

Double Conflicts Tax PR Objectives
As a communications and public relations professional who has worked for corporations, PR agencies and marketing firms, and as an independent consultant during for the past 23 years, I've experienced a number of realities about the practice of public relations that conflict with its very objectives—those of building and maintaining an organization's reputation; providing honest and accurate information about products, services and plans; and building a two-way dialogue with those stakeholders who are affected by its success and its business decisions and actions.

One conflict rests with public relations messages that are incongruent. There are many examples of media relations programs that surpass all public relations objectives, but backfire in the long-run because of a lack of a solid foundation behind the messages. The public discovers that what a company claims in theory proves to be an illusion in practice. A classic case in point is the wildly-successful "Intel Inside" branding campaign emphasizing the company's superior product quality and technical support that was followed subsequent Pentium crisis, which was primarily a public relations, rather than a technology, disaster.

A second conflict exists with the complaint often voiced by many public relations professionals—that their role has been diminished to a pair-of-hands or a technical craftsperson. In this tactical role, they are valued for specialized skills and expertise and not recognized for their strategic talents.

Gap Between PR Profession Vision and Reality
The vision of public relations described in textbooks does not match the reality, particularly as it is practiced in Silicon Valley. One of the benefits of PR that differentiates it from advertising and other marketing communication approaches is its ability to build goodwill, credibility, reputation and brand loyalty over time through dialogue and personal relationship. Yet, while this is true on a case-by-case basis, it does not appear to hold true systemically.

For example, many research studies show that the American public distrusts big business. Other studies suggest that the public relations field has its own share of serious credibility problems.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the practice of public relations has seen its influence narrowed to the function of communications—often one-way communications. In many companies, PR is largely a publicity vehicle in the marketing department, which has historically been focused on one target audience (the customer) and is most valued for supporting one internal constituency (the sales force). In these scenarios, corporate public relations managers report to marketing communications managers. Several functions once considered part of the PR domain are now housed elsewhere in the company, e.g., employee communications under human resources and investor relations under the chief financial officer.

Incongruity and the narrow application of public relations seem to have diminished the potential contribution and influence of the discipline. One has to wonder to what degree public relations as it is practiced today contributes to the societal problems we are experiencing currently: widespread corporate distrust, a focus on image over substance, and indirect and manipulative communication, to name just a few.

To dissolve these conflicts in public relations and communication management, practitioners could benefit greatly from the insights and tools of organizational effectiveness and change management. These are a broad set of disciplines that, for the purpose of this paper, will be labeled with the umbrella term "organization development" (OD).

Unfortunately, few published examples exist of case studies using organization development integrated into public relations practice. A Berkeley, California-based business offers both services as part of a broader business consulting framework. A Chicago PR firm has offered OD services for several years. Several PR firms and corporate PR professionals appear to practice at least some principles of OD. Articles and case studies on aspects of OD in communications are available, such as quality in PR and team development.

Public Relations in Theory
Though a trend toward specialization in public relations exists, a significant number of practitioners consider themselves generalists. To these individuals, public relations encompasses a broad range of activities, including corporate identity/branding, product publicity, media relations, analyst relations, investor relations, employee relations, public affairs, issues management, events marketing and crisis communications.

While many definitions of public relations exist, best practices suggest that the function should be systematic, planned, aligned with organizational performance, mutually beneficial to the organization and its stakeholders, involve two-way communications, be a management function, and operate from a process, rather than an event, mentality. In fact, a process using the acronym RACE has been taught in public relations schools since 1963 as a heuristic and organizing principle.

Research
Action Planning
Communication
Evaluation

In the absence of a richer unifying perspective, some educators believe that the four-step process became the field's predominant paradigm by default. Beyond serving as a model for textbooks, RACE has been institutionalized by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the leading professional association. PRSA has incorporated the RACE process into its accreditation, public education and awards programs. PRSA's Silver Anvil and Bateman Student Case Study Competition use rigorous scoring systems which assign (arbitrary) weights to each step in the process.

Public Relations in Practice
While the RACE process clearly has its limits, what may be even more disturbing is how the four steps are practiced by many PR professionals. The research step is often bypassed or dealt with superficially. Benchmark studies rarely occur. PR firms and in-house specialists have problems getting budget approval for systematic research.

Many articles in professional publications discuss this gap between how much practitioners acknowledge the value of research and the degree to which they actually do it. It appears that much public relations research is done using readily available information, gut feel and assumption.

Planning appears to be more reactive than proactive. Many companies do not allocate the time to develop comprehensive plans. If one is written, it is often left to gather dust on a shelf.

An event orientation predominates most planning. For example, how can the next trade show be maximized? When will the product be ready to introduce? What forum or vehicle will be most effective to get attention? Where is the easiest solution to a given public relations problem?

Evaluation tends to be a highly subjective process. One article in a major public relations research journal calls evaluation "the Achilles Heel" of the profession—an assessment that is shared by authors of a number of published articles. Since little research and planning are done, public relations objectives often are not well specified.

Without clear objectives, there are no agreed-upon measures with which to evaluate the program and public relations professionals are judged on how well they can fix a situation, e.g., save the day by getting press interest despite an unrealistic lead time, "word spin" so that the company is presented in the best light (the "spin doctor" role), or appease a CEO's ego by getting him or her quoted in the business press.

Blame is a common symptom if things don't work out. When this happens, company executives and marketing managers complain that they were "victimized" by their PR firm, despite data that shows they are playing out a historical pattern.

Many PR firms seem to follow the same pattern. They chalk up all the problems in the relationship to the client's unrealistic expectations, inflexibility, etc., without taking responsibility for their conspiratory role in the problem. The upshot is that many PR practitioners, both internal and external, don't learn from their experience.

Like public relations, organization development encompasses many different facets. Some functions include mission development, strategic planning, values clarification, visioning, culture-building, team development, action research, performance enhancement, change management, executive development, career development, job design, training and development, organizational design and facilitation. Popular initiatives such as Six Sigma, learning organizations, self-directed work teams, participative management, total quality, participation, systems thinking, gap analysis and reengineering are integrally connected to OD.

While many models exist in the organization development field, the action-research model is probably the most widely taught. Steps in the process include data collection, data analysis, data feedback, action planning, intervention, and a loop back to data collection, analysis and feedback, etc. (in essence, evaluation).

The action research model parallels closely the RACE model. The data collection, data analysis and data feedback steps represent both the Research and Evaluation aspects of the RACE model, while Action Planning mirrors the RACE Action and Planning step. The OD intervention is similar to the RACE Communication step.

OD Model Supports Strategic PR
A model that integrates organization development insights and tools into the public relations practice is needed in order for the profession to be more proactive, strategically involved and effective—especially as organizations confront turbulent changes in their environments. This paper outlines a conceptual model that aims to support these objectives.

Practitioners who successfully apply this model to public relations are likely to increase their influence, level of strategic involvement, and value to their organizations or clients. Their ability to blend OD's systems and process orientation into their internal and external relationships is also expected to positively affect team cohesion, mutual dialogue, and collaborative activities. They may also strengthen their contributions as boundary-spanners by forging positive relations with organization development and other foundation builders within an organization.

The OD Model has the potential to provide the PR field with fresh knowledge and tools to help meet the new challenges of change. An OD perspective in PR could have significant impact on an organization's ability to be congruent—to walk its talk. As more organizations operate in congruence, business and society will be affected positively, i.e., high congruence leads to better corporate health, increased functionality, and greater goal attainment. Congruence also supports one of today's hottest issues, corporate transparency.

Public relations professionals already have significant influence and power in crafting messages and images to the external world, but would be more much more effective if they were more involved in the strategic decision-making of organizations. The public relations profession already emphasizes external communication, i.e., in theory, two-way symmetrical or asymmetrical (though most frequently it's more "assymetrical," in which a professional acts as an advocate that attempts to persuade stakeholders to act in ways that most benefit the organization they represent).

Public relations practitioners are already involved in the change process as the communicators of this change, but often have not been adequately involved in creating the change. Thus, they wind up being simply mouthpieces for management. A more effective role would be for PR practitioners to take responsibility to become facilitators of change.

The new "RACE with GRACE" Model
A new model of public relations and communication management, incorporating the organization development perspective, is useful to better view the public relations and communications practice from an organizational effectiveness, learning and change perspective. In 1994, as part of my Master's degree thesis process, I conceived the RACE with GRACE model, which combines the original RACE model of public relations with five overriding principles that integrate knowledge from the field of organization development, as well as from the emerging paradigms in communication, management and new science.

The four overriding principles of the RACE portion remain essentially the same (Research, Action Plan, Communicate, Evaluate), but five new process components are added that integrate an organization effectiveness, learning and change perspective into the model.

These new process components make up the acronym GRACE:

Ground in a common understanding
Reflect together
Align messages with behavior
Commit to the process
Engage and empower one another

Each overriding principle represents a strategic direction that is usually neglected or underdeveloped in conventional public relations practice. Each strategic direction, comprised of three strategic processes, has historically been isolated from or considered unrelated to public relations and corporate marketing programs and activities:

Ground in a common understanding

• Define the mission
• Clarify values
• Build a shared vision

Reflect together

• Learn to learn as a team
• Question assumptions
• Nurture self awareness

Align messages with behavior

• Think systemically
• Spot gaps and incongruities
• Integrate and synergize across organizations, groups and individuals

Commit to the process

• Encourage collaboration and participation
• Facilitate shared ownership
• Create a continuous dialogue

Engage and empower one another

• Foster individual growth
• Develop the team
• Strive for strategic involvement