Is it time for public relations practice to abandon its managerial dreams? Prompted by the previous PR Conversations post (Professional PR Development. Why bother?), Dr Ana Adi and Thomas Stoeckle consider the legacy of Grunig’s Model of Excellence and a need to adjust to a contemporary digital environment.
Ana Adi
With all the recent focus on the rapid technological changes, I have found myself confronted more often, both in my courses at Quadriga University of Applied Sciences and in my consultancy, with questions like:
“what should practitioners do” and “how does/will technology affect PR practice”.
Kevin Ruck and Heather Yaxley had pointed out in another conversation on PR Conversations how few practitioners (about 5% of the UK practitioners) are doing anything about their professional development, advocating for normalizing this behavior by promoting and adopting various learning models.
And while I have found myself agreeing with Heather’s suggestion to encourage a mix of structured and experiential learning with critical and reflective practice, I also got stuck mainly because when it comes to the theory and scholarship of PR, no matter how diverse it is, Grunig’s excellence model and its recommendation for PR to be a management function still prevails. Allow me to clarify. There is great benefit in Grunig’s excellence model: the diversity, activism, development arguments being important.
However, in the working context of today’s practitioner, where both accuracy and speed (of action/reaction) are required, hanging tight to being a “management function” is a deterrent rather than a promoter.
Network approach
Looking at Castel’s characteristics of the network society with its flexibility, scalability and survivability, what the practitioner needs nowadays is the freedom to move and join networks where his/her expertise is required.
Smaller teams and groups (whether start-ups, activist and social movements) put this in practice already so why shouldn’t communicators adopt this proven successful practice?
Moreover, what practitioners need is the recognition of their expertise by others as well as their collaboration in completing the tasks at hand. The recognition of expertise doesn’t necessarily come with rank but knowledge.
Therefore, a position as a “management function” might be psychologically comfortable, and pay-wise easier to envisage, but it sends a wrong signal: of gradual, slow and linear growth and development. It also suggests that there is a top somewhere at the top of the pyramid, which in reality means that communicators are prone to reach a ceiling past which there is no more room from growth except, perhaps sideways.
Considering all this, I think it is time to abandon PR’s fascination and pursuit of the managerial function perspective and focus on enacting the values practitioner preach: accountability, reliability, transparency, fairness, flexibility.
Development opportunities
Checking the Global Communication Monitor Series, practitioners around the world indicate that they need digital/technical skills a lot more than managerial skills. Overwhelmingly however, communicators are still offered development opportunities in communication and management instead of business or technology.
For instance, in Asia-Pacific almost 60% of the practitioners surveyed indicated a need to develop their technical skills whereas only about 20% of them said that their organizations offer such training. It is the same for technical knowledge (64.2% vs 16.5% training offered).
Interestingly enough when it comes to managerial skills a little more than 45% of the respondents suggested that they would need to develop them while almost 55% were offered such training.
So coming back to the communicator’s role in the 21st century, the trusted advisor and consultant (someone independent and potentially unattached to the organization) is perhaps what is best fit and we should strive for. It goes much better with the individualized development paths we are envisaging, the values-based choices and endorsements, and the expectations for transparency, accountability, flexibility and fairness.
Thomas Stoeckle
Many years ago (almost 30, in fact), when I was a communication student at Muenster University in Germany, Grunig and excellence theory where the hot new thing. But then this was still merely theorizing public relations, and my professors and peers (not to mention myself) would have largely wrinkled their noses at this insignificant, unsavoury practice. Too close to propaganda. Bad memories in the Fatherland.
Recently, after a long hiatus during which my involvement with PR was largely on the evaluation and measurement side, I’ve come back to reading, thinking and writing about PR practice and theory.
And it’s interesting to realise that Excellence Theory remains such a powerful paradigm in the field, albeit joined by an increasingly diverse band of concepts, models, inter- and multidisciplinary influences.
Transatlantic schism
I might be wrong, but it almost seems as if there’s a bit of a transatlantic schism, with the managerial excellence model predominant in the US, and the more critical, interdisciplinary model gaining more ground in Europe and the rest of the world. Although, that may still be limited to the academy.
Practice is staying focused on hierarchical and strictly systematic, measurable models. The Holy Grail of mathematically, scientifically proving value and RoI remains the ultimate, unattainable prize.
Sadly, that will not change unless the question, the business problem gets reframed.
Ana, you’re setting an ambitious target, and I think a necessary one. Whether it’s the network society, or the attention economy, or merely the precariat: the world has become a very different place in a rather short period of time.
Evolution 2.0
We need new and better answers to critical questions, we even need to ask questions differently. One of the things that fascinates me about the developments of recent years (and I would go back to 2000 when I moved to London and was first introduced to that cool search engine with the whacky name “Google”) is the wide and widening gulf in progress between technology and humanity.
It’s almost like Evolution 2.0. And it’s got very real consequences for our field: on the one hand, there are (still) plenty of digital enthusiasts praising the new opportunities to connect with audiences, to reach and engage, to microtarget messages to maximum effect. On the other, a growing band of sceptics reject the surveillance capitalism and the social engineering implicit in Facebook and Google-style data experiments. Neither academy, nor practice have managed to make sense of that yet.
Realistically, a successful future-proof communication function needs to blend both positions, making the most of the evolving technological capabilities whilst applying common sense, ethical restraint and civic responsibility. Millennials, Gen Zers and whatever cohort comes next have different values and ideas. The best we can do is adjust to them and the evolving, uncertain, interesting environment we are operating in.
Biographies
Dr. Ana Adi (www.anaadi.net) is a Professor of Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Quadriga University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Chair of the Digital Communication Awards, and part of the core research team of the Asia-Pacific Communication Monitor. She is also part of the organising committee of MediAsia. She is the editor of the upcoming Protest Public Relations: Communicating dissent and activism (Taylor & Francis) and the co-editor of #rezist – Romania’s 2017 anti-corruption protests: causes, development and implications (www.romanianprotests.info with Darren G. Lilleker) and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Digital Age (2015, Emerald with Georgiana G. Grigore and Alin Stancu). Originally from Romania, Dr. Adi obtained her PhD from the University of the West of Scotland. Prior to her studies in the UK, Dr. Adi has graduated from institutions in Romania and the United States, the latter as a Fulbright Scholar. Her research, teaching and consultancy focus on issues related to CSR and PR, looking in particular at storytelling and measurement.
Social media contacts: Twitter @ana_adi | LinkedIn https://de.linkedin.com/in/anaadi
Thomas Stoeckle is an independent consultant and researcher in the areas of media intelligence and public communication. Previously he led strategic business development at LexisNexis Business Insight Solutions (BIS). Prior to joining LexisNexis, he was group director and global analytics lead at W2O Group, and managing director at Report International (now CARMA).
Originally from Germany, Thomas has been living and working in London since 2000, and enjoys traveling and learning about the world, both for business, and pleasure. Forever a digital Neanderthal among digital natives, he is keenly aware that adequate solutions to business communication problems demand fluency in the three languages of humans, machines, and business.
Thomas hosts the SmallDataForum podcast, together with Neville Hobson and Sam Knowles. He is co-chair of the Institute for Public Relations Measurement Commission, editorial advisory board member of the Public Relations Journal, and a jury member of the Digital Communication Awards, hosted by Quadriga University Berlin.
Social media contacts: Twitter @thomasstoeckle1 | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasstoeckle/
An excellent and timely exchange. My two cents…
I agree that Excellence Theory is too easily taken out of context. Out of respect for the Grunigs and their many collaborators we should be careful not to conflate its meanings and applications. By the same token, I am not sure I understand Jim’s reference to persuasion. For all intents and purposes, it is “the” effect that most PR practitioners aim to achieve. I don’t accept the notions of information and education as prime objectives because close examination of even the most benign public information programs reveal strategies of influence (my area, so I admit my bias of that frame).
To the author’s provocative idea — that PR might give up the ghost of its management aspirations — I am not sure I care too much what industry leaders direct us to do except to be truthful about “what” we do. I don’t refer to “truth” in the sense of how the Arthur Page W. Society has so blithely put words into the mouth of Arthur Page (Tell the Truth — he never said or wrote this or any so-called Page Principle). I refer to the industry as learning to be and getting comfortable with the observable fact that its principle intent is to influence (i.e., persuade?). As I explained in my panel at last week’s IPR Bridge Conference, this resistance to honest self-appraisal has helped deliver us the fake news era through so many decades of normalized hyperbole and hedged attribution.
Influence and persuasion occur much less frequently than most PR people believe and, especially, try to sell. Let’s try for more likely effects such as relationship building, cognitive understanding, awareness, conflict resolution, awareness of the problems and emotions of others, and similar effects. In particular, let’s use research to move symbols (i.e., communicate) into organizations to help management understand its publics more than move symbols designed to influence or persuade publics to do what we want them to do. My favorite analogy is my mentor Richard Carter’s parable of the chicken that couldn’t lay the golden egg. Like communication scientists studying influence and persuasion (the golden egg), poultry scientists tried every treatment they could think of to get chickens to lay golden eggs (feed rations, environment, housing, and the like), but they never could get chickens to lay golden eggs. Finally, poultry scientists realized that plain old eggs had value (analogy to the communication effects I mentioned), and they had great success in finding conditions that increased the production of plain old eggs.
Love it.
Alan: Why did the chicken cross the road? To get others to come along.
Jim: Why did the chicken cross the road? Because chickens are stupid.
Interesting discussion. As others have said, it’s not an either-or decision.
In the 1990s I was a chief press officer for a stock market listed company (I was a strong technician, not the director of the comms function). Yet I recall attending a financial and technical presentation by a team of engineers wanting to to re-enter the nuclear business. For context, the firm had floated on the stock exchange a year earlier with a statement in its prospectus that it had ‘no significant nuclear liabilities’). I made the case that there were legal, reputational, trust and stakeholder relationship issues that should take precedence – and won the argument. The director of corporate comms later became the CEO (that’s still a highly unusual progression).
Doing, managing, strategising. They’re rather hard to separate out from each other in the real world. We don’t communicate in isolation.
Thanks Richard,
Your response (and others, here, on Twitter and LinkedIn – sadly I can’t follow FB discussions as I’m not on it – never have been, never will be…) has made me carefully re-read and reconsider our argument. Yesterday at an Institute for PR event in Washington (https://instituteforpr.org/the-2018-bridge-program/), Robert Moran, insight lead and futurist at Brunswick, gave a splendid lecture where he advocated “thinking more ridiculous thoughts” as 1+1=2 does not create the future. I think that’s how the conversation between me and Ana started, a few weeks ago in Berlin. Personal, nuanced, intellectually curious and daring to think ridiculously. We are both passionate about education and what lies ahead. It’s about adapting, evolving and creating, not discarding. We don’t want to win arguments, we want to see ideas emerge, ripen and evolve in engaged debate. To your point, I’ve always liked Paul Watzlawick’s observation that one can’t not communicate. What if organisations followed that maxim by rethinking the PR function as ‘organisational communication everywhere, by everyone, at all times’? Would it then still need to “be a thing”? Ridiculous thought, I know.
Thomas – what you allude to reminded me of the Cluetrain Manifesto argument that markets are conversations and everyone in organisations should be able to communicate authentically with anyone and everyone without the barriers and controls imposed by PR and marketing functions (http://www.cluetrain.com/book/markets.html). Arguably there are more people from within organisations talking with those outside it thanks to digital communications. Logically this should have shifted the focus of PR functions onto facilitating this network of conversations. I’m not convinced that the PR mindset has embraced this opportunity.
What a wonderful first sentence to read “Is it time for public relations practice to abandon its managerial dreams?” I say ‘yes’ emphatically.
PR is free form, persuasive communication, available to all in free market, democratic societies. It is weak propaganda that cannot be captured by any group or class.
Let’s emphasize that it is available to all for whatever cause, interest or nonsense we want to promote.
So, public relations is no more or no less than what anyone does in the name of public relations? Sorry, but I think that public relations professionals should have some minimal level of understanding of how to communicate effectively and contribute value to society. Also, I have never understood the preoccupation with persuasion as an effect of public relations or communication in general. The concept is poorly defined: Is it a change in attitudes, cognition, behavior, or something else? If it’s only one of those, or all of them, let’s name each effect separately. Also, it is one of the least frequent effects of communication, so why bother? Let’s concentrate on effects that occur more often.
Lost in this discussion is the fact that the Excellence study never said the public relations director had to be at the top of a hierarchy. What it showed is that public relations must have access to the people who make decisions in organizations. It’s difficult to imagine public relations having any effect on organizational decisions without such access. Also, the Excellence study never said that every public relations person had to be a manager, although knowledge of how an organization is managed is essential for all members of a public relations team. Teams of PR professionals work together to communicate from and to publics and to use that knowledge to affect organizational decisions.
Thanks Jim. I look at the Excellence model – similar to the concept of agenda-setting – as a fundamental building block of a wider concept of communication in the modern world. Of its time, and evolving with the changes in its ecosystem: be it the fragmentation of traditional communication channels, the rise of social media, broader shifts in society etc. In management theory and organisational theory, concepts of decentralisation and with flat structures are being discussed more broadly. There are all fluid descriptions of a fluid world, and we need more of those. Ana’s and my contribution was an invitation to consider classic ideas through today’s lens (with a view to tomorrow, too). The engaged responses are a great outcome.
I agree with Padraig, it’s not a simplistic either/or discussion.
The European Communication Monitor Report 2017 states that the two top issues for communication practitioners are linking business strategy to communication and coping with the digital evolution. To ‘abandon managerial dreams’ in this context would be very short-sighted.
Of course the recognition of expertise comes with knowledge, but knowledge of what? If it is focused primarily on technical knowledge of digital channels and content that creates noise but does nothing for business strategy then that recognition is likely to be very short-lived.
Dear Kevin and Padraig,
Thanks for your great perspective – we all agree it is not an either/or question, and certainly not a simple matter. It is in the nature of headlines that they sometimes oversimplify for the purpose of attracting attention… When Ana and I discussed this (first in person, then deciding it might make for a good PR Conversation), we both felt that we’re living in times that are calling for fresh thinking. But that doesn’t mean abandoning established practice. Professor Jim Macnamara published a very interesting and thoughtful piece in PR Journal recently which makes similar points (and certainly informed my perspective: https://prjournal.instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/5.-public-relations-and-post-communication-addressing-a-paradox-in-public-communication-1.pdf). Times of disruption are also times of opportunity. As Macnamara puts it, this may be the time of choice between organisation-centric ‘post-communication’ (top-down, one way), and ‘public communication’ that brings together humanistic and scientific thinking about achieving impact through communication with progressive and emergent management theory.
Kevin, the ECM also shows that while communicators indicate that linking business strategy with communication and coping with digital evolution, they are still overwhelmingly offered courses that cover communication knowledge and skills (there’s a question on what knowledge and capabilities they would need vs what development opportunities they are offered).
You and Heather identified well areas in which practitioners could develop: those too are beyond communication skills and knowledge. I support that point.
I am a relatively recent entrant to academic consideration of public relations with over 30 years in practice. For me, it is not ‘either / or’ – it is both.
We might look at this differently for context. Habitually, in pretty much all societies, the finance function is the controlling one in organisations. In the last half decade there is a new dynamic at play. Information is a new currency, growing exponentially in its volume and importance.
In the foreseeable future, the ability to understand what information exists in and about an organisation and what effect that is having on everybody around an organisation – intentionlly or otherwise – will be come a significantly more important part of the collective senior management, and board mandate, just as finance is.
In that context communications will be both a critical strategic management function, and part of the evolving network.
Padraig, I think you are spot on when you say that information will be the new currency and thus PR/comms will gain more importance (and with that added responsibility).
What I dispute in particular here is the fascination with the management function paradigm as if the only way to be a good communicator (an excellent communicator) is if one is a manager, director, president or something similar. Too often research (whether academic or professional) splits cohorts into managers and non-managers, diminishing and belittling (perhaps unintentionally) those that are not at the top instead of asking whether and how they meet KPIs.
I am a great supporter of your evolving network idea. Being a manager should not be the focus; achieving what PR is there for (to balance the stakeholders’ demands; reputation; communicating and creating shared value) is what should be in focus.