I’ve always subscribed to the view that a large part of corporate PR, and a prime role of the internal PR Director or Manager, or the external specialist PR consultant, revolves around first identifying, and then mitigating against, risk – reputational risk.
This often means that in the serious end of the corporate world the internal PR professional, or the external specialist PR consultant, has to often come across looking more like the mature corporate lawyer than the young gung-ho PR spin doctor.
In the Australian operation of one multi-national I’ve done some work with over recent years the PR people are, as a matter of course, bought into every significant project just before its ready to be announced or unveiled.
Not only are they older rather than younger – and they’ve been ‘around the block a few times’. Their specific role is to act as the devils advocate. Their task is to look at things from the perspective of: “What is the worse case scenario?” “What might possibly go wrong?” “How could this initiative or announcement backfire on us?” They try to second-guess and test every aspect of a project from the perspective of those who will be impacted by it.
It’s surprising how often those sponsoring or developing projects get so close to them that they simply fail to see the wood for the trees. Bringing an external, and unbiased, perspective to bear, while sometimes seen negatively as ‘running interference’, is simply just part of good risk management.
The fact that PR might have a role to play in risk management might surprise many, especially given that the perception that the media, and others, often have of PR professionals is of them as ‘spinners’; always wanting to package something and be as aggressive and outgoing as possible.
I also think that within the PR industry there’s a generational dimension around this issue. PR and communications professionals such as me, who have been working in the corporate sector for decades, just naturally take this devil’s advocate approach to every project.
I take the view that you have to know the possible negatives before you can build the positives. And that any communications program needs to identify, and mitigate, the risks.
From my observation those much younger often don’t come from the same perspective. They are often great on the positives, but sometimes without any comprehension of what might go wrong. As a consequence their messaging can often come back to bite them.
What got me onto this topic was an article in the long-established US PR publication ‘O’Dwyer’s Magazine’ on the BP disaster from Fraser P Seitel, a PR author and seasoned communications consultant.
He makes two key points around crisis communications, and the BP situation specifically, both of which relate to risk in a situation where everyone should be aware of the risks.
First, says Seitel, never predict what might be the consequences (and BP early on in the crisis said they thought the Gulf of Mexico spill would result in a “very, very, modest environmental impact”).
Second, downplay expectations. As Seitel says, throughout the crisis BP constantly thought they were close to solving the problem – when they were not. As Seitel says, “it is better to “low ball” potential outcomes, i.e. anticipate the worst than it is to get everyone’s hopes up and risk having them dashed”.
To me Seitel’s practical example demonstrates the point I am trying to make i.e. that a substantive role of responsible corporate PR or communication is about advising our corporate masters to be cautious about the consequences, rather than (over) confident about their own abilities. And thinking too much about sound bites on the evening news!
Talking about sound bits the Rudd demise, which I’ve already given a perspective on (an abbreviation of which was judged the BRW ‘Letter of the Week’ in their July 8-14 edition) is not unconnected to this theme. He seemed to surround himself with a bunch of 30 year-old advisors, who appeared to be pre-occupied with the 24 hour news cycle. They seemed to have no conception as to how to mitigate against risk.
It would be interesting to know how many internal PR professionals in Australia, play the role of the inqusitor. It’s often not a popular role. But it can be worth its weight in gold.
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