(This week, PR News editors Phil Hall and Courtney Barnes help their PR friends by unscrewing the hinges on the C-suite door.)
PHIL: Last month, the U.S. Department of Defense published a 136-page report detailing acute personnel problems facing today's military. Yet Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, in a press conference that was widely reported, stated he would not read his department's report and insisted the report's findings "do not reflect the current
situation" and they are "either out of date or just misdirected." Can you imagine this situation in the corporate world? Admittedly, few CEOs would follow Rumsfeld's example of
publicly belittling his own communications team, but there are plenty of CEOs who are either unaware of their company's internal communications or cannot be bothered reading them.
As I see it, this fuels the seemingly endless debate on how corporate communications officers can get their CEOs to pay attention to them.
COURTNEY: One way to up the corporate communications ante in the face of adverse publicity - or get to attention of the C-suite - is to be proactive instead of reactive.
General Motors did quite a job of that recently when, amid news of earnings trouble throughout the automotive industry, it elected one of its most outspoken critics to its
board: Jerome B. York, adviser to one of GM's biggest individual investors, Kirk Kerkorian. It certainly turned a few heads but, more significantly, it was a gesture that
communicated a powerful characteristic to the public: confidence. It's something that the automotive industry could use a bigger dose of now, as its reputation takes beating
after beating in the media.
PHIL: Kudos to GM, of course, but they seem to be the exception to the rule. The C-suite crowd isn't always progressive when it comes to acknowledging internal
criticism (especially if it is documented by its PR team). That's obviously human nature - who wants to be told they're wrong? But it creates an obstacle for the PR
professionals hovering at the C-suite entrance. If they are too blunt and honest, their input runs the risk of turning off executives of the Rumsfeld mindframe who only want
happy news. But if they dilute or sugarcoat the harsh truth, then they wind up playing clean-up when their worst fears become reality and the fan gets hit with you-know-what.
COURTNEY: The main way for PR managers to handle a seemingly lose-lose situation is to always have a contingency plan. This can range from a "plan B" in case of an
emergency to a "succession planning" PR strategy in the case of a CEO or other executive's swift and public departure (this applies to the nonprofit world, too, as it currently
hosts a revolving door of CEOs - the American Red Cross' notable vacancy after Marsha Evans' December 2005 resignation comes to mind). The ability to mitigate, manage or
prevent crises will elevate PR execs in the eyes of the C-suite, and it will also bolster corporate reputation to the public.