Force For Good Communications

Visionary leaders help others see past the gloom and doom

Last night as I watched President Obama’s speech, I kept thinking about how the global economic meltdown has become the defining issue of the day, shaping the way we talk about everything. And it made me wonder how effectively companies are communicating to their employees and to other essential audiences: customers and potential customers, shareholders and analysts, suppliers and policy makers.

Whether a person voted for him or not, one has to be moved by Obama’s hope-filled vision. Americans, indeed, are “not a nation of quitters.” And they respond well when a leader stirs their best and brightest instincts, rather than their fears. I believe that employees and external stakeholders alike will respond to corporate leaders who can sincerely articulate a confident vision of success – diligent effort during the downturn aimed at true distinction in the better days ahead.    

Too many business leaders seemed focused only on slashing costs to survive the crisis. But burning the furniture to heat the house is self-defeating. So is focusing all attention on cost-cutting. Productivity from your shell-shocked, demotivated employees will sink your enterprise further.

Leaders who can articulate a winning approach for both slopes of the business cycle will stand out when others seem only capable of wringing their hands.

And expert communications professionals can help these visionary leaders hit the mark with all audiences and stakeholder groups.

Strategic communications can help drive market leadership through crisp and consistent messaging. We start by asking:  Are our messages on the mark?  Are external product communications consistently aimed at driving sales performance, fully integrated into our marketing mix model? Are we quantifying that contribution and holding ourselves accountable for it? Do our internal communications successfully engage our employees, providing them a sense of confident urgency to seize the opportunity at hand?

I believe these questions are quite pertinent in today’s extremely challenging environment with companies slashing budgets and demanding strong, tangible results from their staff functions.

- Jon Harmon

Reputation Officer Can Be A Solid Operational Leader

Chrysler's hiring of former Toyota exec Jim Press to be its new President and Vice Chairman is a move PR professionals everywhere can cheer. Press made his mark at Toyota North America as its chief public relations officer before taking on operational responsibilities as Toyota's highest ranking gaijin, I mean, non-Japanese exec.

Why is it surprising that a very capable and well-respected PR pro can ascend to lead a major corporation's operations? After all, reputation is undeniably any company's greatest asset, so shouldn't its Chief Reputational Officer be at least as likely a CEO-in-waiting as its Chief Financial Officer?

Regular and long-time Force for Good readers may be experiencing déjà vu. At risk of being both redundant and self-congratulatory, here is an excerpt from a post this past March 15 that itself referenced a previous post on this subject:

Reputational momentum defines the art of the possible of nearly every other goal of the business or organization – sales, profits, retention, recruitment or fund-raising. If your reputation is on the rise, achieving your other goals is so much easier. Conversely, a poorly managed crisis leading to a significant drop in reputation can capsize even the company’s most valiant efforts to achieve its other goals.

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This concept is so unquestionably true that it will become impossible to ignore ... (here again is) a two-phase prediction I first made on this blog back in December: that five years from now the executive position of Chief Reputation Officer will be common in the C-Suites of major corporations in every industry, and that in 10 years, the Chief Reputation Officer will be just as likely as the Chief Financial Officer to step up and succeed a departing Chief Executive Officer. Why should the chief bean counter have a lock on the path to CEO ... when the number of beans to be counted is predicated by the company’s reputational momentum?

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Here's wishing Press all the best. He's blazing a trail that others will surely follow.

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- Jon Harmon

Public Relations as Reputation Management: Beyond the Roles of Mouthpiece and Mop-up Crew

Back in March, I wrote a post about an experience I had as a speaker following the legendary Harold Burson at the Texas Public Relations Association’s annual meeting. Burson and I subsequently exchanged emails on the subject of reputation management and the future of the PR profession. Burson's next post on his blog further developed his thoughts on the roles of PR professional beyond a narrow definition of communications, a theme he has spoken about for more than 30 years. This post on Force for Good picks up from those conversations.)

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The role of the corporate communications professional is rapidly changing, responding to the sea changes all around us: the rise of consumer-generated social media, globalization, the incredible personalization of information technology, greater expectations on corporations for transparency and social responsibility, and increasingly inter-connected stakeholder groups including often-adversarial activists.

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Corporate and agency public relations professionals must do more than merely adapt to these sweeping changes in the communications dynamic. Corporations need their PR professionals to move beyond helping them communicate to stakeholders (the traditional role of corporate mouthpiece); they need guidance on how to engage in fluid conversations (that means listening as well as talking, respectfully understanding the new rules of engagement). And they need their PR professionals to be an important input into the business, to participate “at the table” when business decisions are made rather than serving only as a mop-up crew called in to clean up a messy situation. Participation at the table requires PR professionals to understand the business thoroughly to be respected by the company’s operations as a full partner in making decisions that may affect the company’s reputation and the value of its brands.

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This evolution beyond passive corporate communicator to active reputation manager elevates the value and importance of our profession. That’s an exciting, if not wholly new, development. More than 30 years ago, Harold Burson began speaking about a role for public relations beyond the communications function. Here are some lifts from a speech of his entitled “Social Responsibility or‘Telescopic Philanthropy: The Choice is Ours” (forgive his exclusive use of masculine nouns and pronouns, bearing in mind this prescient speech dates back to 1973):

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The public relations executive provides a qualitative evaluation of social trends.  He helps formulate policies that will enable the corporation to adapt to these trends.  And he communicates – both internally and externally – the reasons for those policies.  Public relations, I’d like to emphasize, is involved in all the steps – from analysis through action to communications – a corporation must take to meet its obligations to the public.  And those obligations are numerous and constantly changing. 

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Burson then dissects his vision for this expanded role for public relations:

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In a sense, the public relations professional doing his job for the modern corporation fulfills a role that may be divided into four parts:

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First, he serves as the sensor of social change.  He perceives those rumblings at the heart of the society that augur good or ill for his organization.  In a way, he is like a radar man.  He gives early warning.  And, after detecting the yearnings and stirrings, he interprets the signals for the management team.

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His perceptions, of course, cannot be founded on intuitive judgments and guesswork.  He must be objective and analytical; he can bring the insights of the social sciences to bear upon his conclusions.  In analyzing change, he must have a strong sense of reality.  He must identify the situation as it really is, not as he imagines it to be.  He must be able to separate enduring social changes from current fads….

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The second role which the public relations man must fulfill is that of corporate conscience.  I trust you will not infer from this that a person must be a public relations professional to be sensitive – or that public relations people behave in ways that are either more moral and ethical or more in the public interest than executives with different titles.  There are others in the corporate hierarchy who may possess the same amount or even more of these attributes than the individuals responsible for public relations.  But the fact is that being the professional corporate conscience is not part of the job description of other executives.  It is part of the job description of the chief public relations officer.

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The third major role of the public relations professional is that of communicator.  The tendency is to think that communications is his only role.  That is hardly the case although it is an important function.

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Communications relating to social issues moves in two directions – internally and externally.  Most often, the emphasis is placed on external communications.  Although external communications is important, it is, in many respects, secondary to and dependent upon an effective internal communication program.…

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The fourth function of the public relations professional is to serve as corporate monitor.  I am tempted to use the word ombudsman here, for I think it is in the spirit of an ombudsman that the public relations officer should regard his job. Obviously, he can’t be an ombudsman in the strictest sense of the word. But since public relations is involved with public issues, there is a need for constant monitoring of corporate policies and programs to make sure that they do, indeed, match public expectations. If the programs are not functioning or if they fall short of expectations, it is his job to agitate for new programs and new policies. It seems to me quite natural for the public relations practitioner to adopt this posture. If he fails to do so, he fails to live up to the requirements of his job.

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Perhaps what we are saying is that social accountability is just another management art that corporations are going to have to learn.  In the long run, the corporation which does the best job of managing its operations will also do the best job of adapting to social needs.

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That’s a lot to chew on – and amazingly as on-point today as it was during the time of the Vietnam War and Watergate. In my next post, I’ll add my thoughts and take it a step further yet – moving beyond the “seat at the table.”

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- Jon Harmon

Did Wal-Mart Have a Brain Seizure and Go All HP on Its Stockholders?

Could it really be that one of the world’s most scrutinized – and criticized – companies copied the tragi-comic escapades that earned Hewlett-Packard 2006 “PR Disaster of the Year” dishonors?

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that New York City comptroller William Thompson has sent letters to the U.S. Attorney General’s office and the SEC asking for an investigation into Wal-Mart’s allegedly “ill-considered and possibly illegal surveillance operations.” Reports of “chilling and truly outrageous surveillance activities,” Thompson says, include spying on stockholders who have submitted contentious proposals for consideration at Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder meeting in June.

Did some senior-level exec at Wal-Mart lose all grip with reputational reality and begin channeling Patricia Dunn, or was this ill-conceived idea never seriously considered?

Wal-Mart says the idea of spying was raised in a memo but never acted upon.

In a letter to shareholders, Wal-Mart's top legal adviser, Tom Hyde, denied that the company had initiated an intrusive "threat assessment" of shareholders who submitted proxy statement proposals, writing:

“In spite of a January 2007 memo referenced in the [WSJ] article, there were no inquiries made with respect to the proponents of shareholder proposals. Given the nature of the matters proposed and our familiarity with the individual proponents, the request contained in the memo was not acted upon.”

Note: Wal-Mart's position on this issue is nowhere to be found on its website - only this lame non-statement. The excerpt of Hyde's memo can be found on Wal-Mart Watch. I certainly would prefer to source from Wal-Mart directly but am hampered by the lack of transparency on its public website.

There will be no shortage of watchdog groups keeping the investigation under the hot spotlight of mass media and the blogosphere. No matter what explanation emerges, this story underscores the need for a Chief Reputation Officer at major corporations to steer executive decisions clear of reputational land mines.

- Jon Harmon

An Open Letter to Harold Burson: Reputation Management Fulfills PR's Highest Calling

Put yourself in my shoes: A few hours before you’re scheduled as the closing speaker at a professional conference, you listen as the luncheon speaker – a true legend in your field – begins talking on a theme that is very similar to your own presentation.

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That’s just what played out this past Saturday in Houston at the Texas Public Relations Association’s annual conference. Harold Burson was the luncheon speaker. Named “the century’s most influential PR figure” in a survey conducted by PR Week, Burson is the architect of the largest public relations agency in the world today, Burson-Marsteller, and has had so many accomplishments and amazing experiences – beginning as a U.S. Army correspondent covering the Nuremberg Trial of Nazi war criminals.

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Like everyone else in the banquet hall, I sat in rapt attention as Burson spoke about the state of our profession and his profound misgivings about the current trend away from the term “public relations” in our own titles in favor of “communications.” The negative perception in the public toward “PR” began with Richard Nixon during Watergate, Burson said. “Communications” is a much more benign descriptor, avoiding all the spin-doctoring connotation associated with PR.

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But “communications” as a title of our function sells public relations short, he said. We are more than just the mouthpiece or the megaphone for our companies. Our most important function, Burson declared, is in providing counsel to our organizations.

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That’s when I really began to squirm, because that’s exactly what I planned to speak about three hours later. But mercifully, Harold Burson, left that thought hanging in the hall (although he talks about it further in his lastest posting on his blog), while he recounted several personal anecdotes from his amazing career, wonderful stories that reaffirmed the power of what we do. We gladly rewarded him with a long, standing ovation.

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And so Burson’s hanging curveball proved a most gracious gift to me as closing speaker; I couldn’t have asked for a better set up, and so I stepped up and tried to hit it out of the park in his honor.

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My presentation was titled “Reputation Management: beyond the seat at the table.” I talked about the evolution of our profession away from being perceived as mere mouthpiece or mop-up crews. At most companies, PR has gained respect because we’ve earned it – as antennae picking up signals from the public and the external world, as the conscience of the organization urging it do the right things, and as megaphone articulating a clear and distinct message to the consuming public.

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But even that evolution too often leaves PR with a marginalized seat at the big table, I said. We can and should do much more to lead our companies to success. The key is in reputation management. When company leaders come to understand that reputation is the company’s most valuable asset, they will increasingly value those who can actively and successfully manage reputation.

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Reputational momentum defines the art of the possible of nearly every other goal of the business or organization – sales, profits, retention, recruitment or fund-raising. If your reputation is on the rise, achieving your other goals is so much easier. Conversely, a poorly managed crisis leading to a significant drop in reputation can capsize even the company’s most valiant efforts to achieve its other goals.

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This concept is so unquestionably true that it will become impossible to ignore, I said. And then I repeated a two-phase prediction I first made on this blog back in December: that five years from now the executive position of Chief Reputation Officer will be common in the C-Suites of major corporations in every industry, and that in 10 years, the Chief Reputation Officer will be just as likely as the Chief Financial Officer to step up and succeed a departing Chief Executive Officer. Why should the chief bean counter have a lock on the path to CEO, I asked, when the number of beans to be counted is predicated by the company’s reputational momentum?   

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And so I’m publishing this “open letter” to Harold Burson today with the hope that I have in my own small way delivered a fitting answer to the issue he raised in Texas. Thanks in no small part to the brilliance of people like Burson, our profession can now look forward to amazing days ahead as we move from being seen as mere communicators to being reputation managers.

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- Jon Harmon

   

Missing in Action Redux: HP Responds

On December 10, this blog raised several questions about PR not having a "seat at the executive table" at Hewlett Packard, and how that absence may have contributed to HP's tragic-comic spy scandal ("Empty Seat at the Table Devastating in HP Debacle"). Last week my op-ed, excerpted from that post, was featured in the Bull Dog Reporter's Daily Dog ("Missing in Action: Where is PR's Seat at HP's Executive Table?").

Today, HP's Bob Sherbin provided this response to the Daily Dog op-ed:

If Jon Harmon insists on making a habit of opining on corporate communications issues, he might want to pause briefly to get his facts straight. He boldly takes Engelina Jaspers to task for not doing her job, which he describes in detail in his piece. Only he gets it wrong. She is responsible for corporate marketing within the Americas region—not at the corporate level, which is where issues involving what he refers to as HP's "well-established C-Suite" are handled. As it happens, there is a team responsible at HP for reputational issues at a corporate level. The leadership of that team was in Washington during the hearings and did its level best to work to get the company through this difficult matter. Mr. Harmon's right in saying that PR and marketing need to be integrated. That's how HP is set up and operates. That doesn't mean mistakes don't get made. But the problem isn't a structural matter one—let alone the fault of Ms. Jaspers, who doesn't even work in this area.

—Bob Sherbin, HP

Force For Good regrets any misstatements and appreciates any clarity Sherbin has provided. Because you certainly can't find any clarity as to Jaspers' responsibilities on HP's on-line Newsroom. The only mention of Jaspers one can find on the Newsroom is this single release that references Jaspers as VP - Corporate Marketing. .

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The fact that Jaspers also has broad responsibility for PR is detailed in her bio  from her Conference Board presentation September 28.  According to printed materials made available to those attending that presentation (but not readily available on-line), Jaspers' responsibilities include “corporate and media relations, employee and executive communications and region corporate affairs.”

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Call me crazy, but that sounds like broad responsibility for corporate public relations. And one might expect a person with such responsibility to be in Washington when the company's Chairman and former Chairman are testifying before Congress.

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As cited in my original blog post, the information in HP's Newsroom outlining the company's executive structure details a C-Suite without any officer with public relations responsibility. (Certainly PR must report up though one of these officers, but it doesn't merit a mention in any of their titles.).

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Of course, I never had any doubt that senior people "responsible at HP for reputational issues at a corporate level" accompanied Mark Hurd and Patricia Dunn to Washington for the Congressional hearing. The problem is, at HP "those people" are lawyers. There is a world of difference between obeying the letter of the law and doing the right things, acting the right ways and communicating clearly and openly -- concepts that I would doubt are top of mind to the HP General Counsel.

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As astute reader of FFG Bill McKibben pointed out in a response posted December 19:

Great piece in the BullDog today. HP still hasn't figured out what they are doing wrong. Lawyers show you where the edge of the law comes into play. Ethics is an entirely different discipline.

It shows in the title HP and others assign, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer. Ethics is about doing the right thing; Compliance is about doing what the law requires.

Exactly. Doing right by the lawyers will keep you out of jail. But doing right by your Chief Reputation Officer will keep you in business with your customers. Markets are conversations and those conversations are not conducted in Latin.

- Jon Harmon

Empty Seat at the Table Devastating in HP Debacle

Imagine you’re the VP of Public Relations at a global mega-corporation. The company's Chairman calls you into her office and begins telling you about her plan to curtail some annoying leaks from the Board of Directors.

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“We’ll need to spy on our Directors and our employees, find out who’s leaking. We’ll need to spy on those dreadful journalists, too. We’ll hire an undercover investigative team that can mislead bank and telephone company employees into giving up their private records to help us find the leaks. We can even have the investigators pretend to be janitors working in newsrooms to try to over-hear any conversations about our company.”

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You would, of course, reply, “Are you nuts?!!”

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And the Chairman would regain her senses and get back to work on saner plans.

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The tragic-comedy at Hewlett Packard might have been averted if just such a scene had actually occurred. But it didn't. HP Chairman Patricia Dunn went full-speed ahead with her spying scheme without consulting the company's PR chief.

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So, where was HP’s Public Relations counsel when the company needed it most? Nowhere near the action. HP simply did not value professional reputation management; PR was, and remains, absent from the executive table at HP.

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There's a valuable, transforming lesson here for the corporate world. HP’s implosion makes a bizarre but eloquent argument for the establishment of a Chief Reputation Officer with more than just “a seat at the table.” The CRO should play a central role in any and every business decision directly affecting corporate reputation.

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Let’s take a closer look at HP’s executive structure.

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The company has a well-established C-Suite with a CEO, a CFO, CIO, a CMO, even a CS&TO (Chief Strategy and Technical Officer). And in response to the spy scandal, HP’s Board established a new position, CE&CO (Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer) October 11. That was certainly a positive step but it might never have been necessary had HP had an active and competent CRO with sufficient backbone to stand up to Dunn.

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At what table does the head of PR sit at HP? You won't find a VP-PR among the direct reports of Mark Hurd (who replaced Dunn as Chairman, adding to his ongoing responsibilities as CEO). That's the first red flag indicating that PR (and active reputational management) is not valued at HP.

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But it gets worse. Engelina Jaspers is HP’s VP – Corporate Marketing. You’d never know it from her succinct title, but Jaspers is also responsible for “corporate and media relations, employee and executive communications and region corporate affairs.” Evidently, at HP those PR responsibilities are blithely lumped in with "marketing" and don't even merit a mention in Jasper's title.

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Of course, integrating PR and Marketing into a single seamless conversation with the marketplace is a good thing, but total subordination of PR is not. How is the voice of reputation heard at HP?

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Let's turn the calendar back to September 28. Both Hurd and Dunn (left) were in Washington D.C. to testify before Congress in hearings on the HP spy scandal. USA Today devoted its Money cover story and a jump page to the proceedings, noting that that September 28 would be a “defining day” for Hurd and HP.

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And where was Jaspers? In New York, speaking at a Conference Board communications conference.

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I was at that Conference Board event that day. Jaspers, I recall, made a nice impression and spoke well (following her opening disclaimer that she would not discuss the HP leak investigation).  Her topic, ironically, was “A Global Challenge: Becoming a Most Admired Company.” But I can’t remember a single point she made, because the whole time she was speaking, the only thing running through my mind was “Why aren’t you in Washington today with your CEO at such a critical moment?” Jasper’s absence from the Congressional hearings speaks volumes about PR's empty seat at the executive table at HP.

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Which leads to two pressing questions:

• Will HP wake up and fill that empty seat with a strong and respected CRO to be the company’s voice of reputation and to help restore the “HP Way”?

• Does PR take an active place at the table at your company or your clients' companies? Does PR have sufficient stature that the Chairman (even a rogue Chairman) would seek PR's advice before launching a similarly ill-advised scheme with devastating reputational consequences?

Postscript: Mark my words. Five years from now, the office of CRO will be commonplace among global corporations. And ten years from now, the CRO will vie with the CFO as the most likely path to the office of CEO. Reputation is a corporation's most valuable capital asset and those who manage it best will be rewarded handsomely.

-- Jon Harmon