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Nex Media • PUBLIC RELATIONS, IT REALLY MATTERS...
communications managers and teams but this has changed; employees in
any division can be the biggest drivers of a company’s public relations efforts,
knowingly or unknowingly, and consumers have an influence too. Social media
tools are enabling anyone and everyone to have a say on brands, people and
products, thereby influencing communications and the public image of those
brands, people and products.
Without a clear public relations and communications strategy, managing
perceptions in such an environment can become a nightmare. With a better
understanding of what the public image of a brand, its people and its products
should be, it becomes easier to frame the image of the business and how it
should work internally and project externally; and in the event that there is
diversion, the public relations plans reroute to the image that the organisation
desires. Organisations can then recover based on a clear plan, relook where
they went wrong and attracted negative publicity, and rework their strategies
and plans.
Various scholars, among others Derina Holtzhausen, rightfully argue that
the function of public relations is to ensure inclusiveness of all voices that
are affected by the organisation, thereby benefiting the public as well as
the organisation itself. In the modernist tradition, PR practitioners focus on
strategies that are nothing less than efforts to exert power and control over
the organisational environment.
Furthermore, when leaders engage employees on the running of the
business, the direction of its public relations efforts, it will enable employees
to become more conscious of their actions and the consequence thereto on
the brand.
In this vein the importance of embracing discipline cannot be overstated.
Every organisation, no matter how large or small, ultimately depends on
its reputation for survival and success, placing immense importance on
PR. According to Warren Buffet, ‘If you lose money for the firm I will be
understanding. If you lose reputation I will be ruthless.
‘Why? Because, on a 10-point reputation scale, 1-point difference is worth
$500m for large corporations.’
Steinhoff is a classic example – we saw how allegations of fraud against
its CEO affected its share price, driving it to decline by 85 per cent in a short
space of time.
A public relations strategy is not a nice-to-have or a paper exercise; it’s
a lifestyle and should be reflected throughout an organisation, especially by
the people who lead it. It goes without saying that if the institutionalisation
of strategic public relations is placed highly within an organisation, it will
build and authenticate the legitimacy of the field. It is then quite critical to
ensure that the public relations practitioners should govern to what extent
PR may be institutionalised around its fundamental values and principles. If
it truly is of importance, leaders will adhere to and display the values of their
organisation.
There is true value in adopting an all-encompassing public relations
approach that reflects the values of an organisation in its leaders and their
conduct, as well as consistently looking into public relations audits to ensure
that leaders truly represent the values of an organisation. Leaders who talk
the talk but don’t walk the talk inevitably lead to conflicting perceptions and
organisational insecurities. The ultimate role for any leader is to uphold the
values of the organisation while building its brand.
Essentially, organisations should look at its leaders’ individual values
and whether those values are aligned with the organisational values so
that he/she can represent the organisation fully. Similarly, public relations
practitioners should uphold the values of the organisations they represent,
because the public’s perceptions about the organisation are shaped not only
by its image, but also by the conduct of its people and leadership.
