The textbooks will tell you that corporate communications is supposed to be strategic and proactive, yet all too often that theory is discarded amid the fast-forward pace of
business life. In today's time-is-money corporate environment - where CEOs and top-level executives are tempted to execute short-term maneuvers first and think about potential
public reaction later - communications is often relegated to a merely tactical and reactive function after a problem has occurred.
The result has been predictable, and painful.
With no top-ranking adviser directly counseling the CEO about the potential impact of public perceptions - injecting new ideas early in the corporate decision-making process,
when misguided plans can be challenged and reversed - some of the nation's most profitable firms have blundered into costly, sometimes catastrophic errors. Plummeting public
esteem for business in general, and the status of CEOs in particular, has quickly taken hold.
An old adage says that "conscience" is defined as "that still, small voice deep inside that reminds you: Somebody may be looking." Amid the wave of corporate scandals in the
past 24 months, it's clear that such reasoned voices within corporate America were often silent or unheard.
If only some top-ranking executive within the C-Suite (the office of the CEO, COO and CFO), attuned to public and political sentiment, had told Richard Grasso at the New York
Stock Exchange that investors and financial professionals - as well as federal regulators - would be outraged by his excessive pay package given the current economic climate then
both the exchange and Grasso himself might have been spared their recent humiliation.
How different history might have been, if only some trusted, senior figure had been in a position to tell the CEO of Arthur Andersen that the firm's flawed corporate culture,
if revealed, would provoke investors' denunciations; to tell the CEO of Tyco that his personal excesses, if exposed, would undermine Wall Street's confidence; and to tell the CEO
and CFO of Enron that off-the-books accounting manipulations, if even suspected, could demolish the entire company.
Much of the recent corporate-reform movement has emphasized greater individual decisiveness in delivering hard truths to the CEO. The Sarbanes-Oxley reform law, for example,
puts a greater burden on corporate directors and outside accountants to be more outspoken, inviting blunt face-to-face confrontations when a CEO's ideas deserve to be
challenged.
But the longer-term answer is not individual. It's institutional.
The "C-Suite" needs an enhanced structure that promotes truth-telling - and it needs a newly empowered corporate voice of reason, at the topmost level, to deliver public-
spirited messages that might be unwelcome. In this post-Enron era of rigor and restraint, it's time for more companies to consider creating the position of CCO: a Chief
Communications Officer. That aide, recognized as fully the equal of the COO and CFO, must be empowered - indeed, expected - to anticipate harsh public reaction to business
moves.
It would require individuals of extraordinary skill to make such a structural change succeed: an assertive CCO, who would have to be able to summon the gumption to defy C-Suite
"groupthink," and an attentive CEO, who would have to set a tone from the top that he welcomes debate and dissent.
Any successful CCO would have to grasp that, in today's context of global financial trading and instant media coverage, the role of corporate communications goes far beyond the
tactical model that often relegates traditional public relations to a lesser stature. Communicators are often "the last to know" - about a merger, about a personnel move, or about
a nuanced financial maneuver - and are merely given instructions to carry out, quickly and obediently, the orders from the C-Suite: to put out a press release (which might not be
fully forthcoming), to set up a Wall Street conference call (which might not convey the whole truth) or to inform dejected governors or mayors about plant closures (which might
have been handled differently).
For their part, CEOs would have to recognize the role of communications as strategic rather than tactical. The sometimes sycophantic circle of C-Suite officials, who are
unwisely inclined to shield the boss from bad news, makes it imperative that a CEO have a truth-teller who can prevent bad ideas from taking hold.
With a CEO recognizing the value of a CCO, they can together help a firm's communications role fulfill its true status as "the head and the heart" of a company, not just "arms
and legs" deployed on deadline. Communicators must regain respect as senior strategic counselors who, with antennae attuned to many external constituencies, can help guide CEOs
away from danger.
Granted, there may be few chief communicators or chief executives with the degree of moxie and muscle to make such a structural change work within America's largest
corporation. Yet the alternative is bleak: By continuing with today's flawed structure, which closets the C-Suite in protective ignorance and diminishes the vital role of public
judgment, corporate leaders risk recurring outbreaks of scandal-driven shocks to the stock price. For leaders who value straight talk and the impact of public opinion elevating
the strategic role of corporate communications - putting it into its deserved role among the C-Suite's topmost leaders - is an ideal way to start reclaiming corporate America's
tarnished credibility.
Contact: Tom Hoog is chairman of Hill & Knowlton and this year served as chair of the Counselors Academy of the Public Relations Society of America. He can be reached at
303.651.7300, [email protected] .