The break-up of AT&T in 2000 was one of the most dramatic episodes in recent U.S. business history. And Dick Martin was there as the one-time industrial giant imploded.
"I was not a fly on the wall at meetings of AT&T's senior management. I had a seat at the table," says Martin, who began working for AT&T in 1970 and was head of
AT&T's public relations from 1997 through his 2002 departure. Now he's put all the details into a new book titled, "Tough Calls: AT &T and the Hard Lessons Learned from
the Telecom Wars" (AMACOM, $24.95). Martin, who is now pursuing a writing career, provides readers with eye-opening revelations into the break-up of AT&T as focuses on how to
strike a balance between internal and external communications. PR News recently caught up with him to see what PR pros could learn from his experience.
Global PR execs are facing a lot of the challenges described in your book: regulatory changes, hyper-competition, stock market pressures, internal politics and staying on
top of new technologies. How do senior PR executives make sure the company stays on top of all of these curves?
Stay in touch with reality. The popular media have built up this myth that all PR people do is "spin" reality, but good PR executives worry more about the reality.
That's not to say that perception doesn't matter. The difference is, for instance, that when he was called on the carpet about his executive compensation [former General Electric]
chairman Jack Welch gave some it back and the problem went away. He dealt with reality. On the other hand, [former New York Stock Exchange chairman] Dick Grasso, when facing
similar criticism, filed a lawsuit and had his friends defend him in articles written for the Wall Street Journal. That's perception and all he's done is dig a bigger hole
for himself. If you pay too much attention to perception you're paying attention to all the wrong things.
Your write about how to improve relationships between PR execs and the C-suite Short of picking up the CEO by the lapels, what's the most persuasive way PR execs can call a 'Time out' before a difficult situation starts to get out of control?
Sometimes you do have to grab the CEO by the lapels. You need to understand the business at least as well as the financial, marketing and operating execs, and I learned a lot
on how to do that from observing the general counsel(s) at AT&T. What [PR execs] need to understand is that nine out of 10 people CEOs comes into contact with are trying to
keep the real world away. For example, [former AT&T CEO] Jim Olson offered his barber the opportunity to set up shop in the AT&T headquarters (in Basking Ridge, N.J.);
there's about 3,000 people in that building and the barber felt he good do very well there. But when Olson asked that room be made in the building his staffers ended up having a
wall knocked down right by his office so getting a haircut would be convenient for him (as opposed to AT&T employees). And no employee was going to pass the chief's office to
get a haircut. So you have to stay on the front lines and understand the real attitudes and what's really going on.
You had a "seat at the table" but many senior PR execs do not. Why do the majority of CEOs lowball PR and what can the profession do, collectively, to change that
perception?
A lot of CEOs think of PR execs as glad-handers and wordsmiths. It's the enlightened CEO who looks for PR execs who have really good business judgment and are creative, but
applied to business realities and integrity and not slogans. It helps to stand up, CEOs respect that. One of the advantages PR people have is that CEOs do not see them as
jockeying for their job so you can capitalize on that by being honest, consistent and not having any hidden agenda.