If you are the typical Australian PR, public affairs or communication director or manager you probably face a multiplicity of challenges.
Not only do you need to be top-notch PR professional; there’s a multitude of management tasks to juggle, not the least of which is to manage both an internal PR department, as well as an external PR agency.
And while not all organisations operating in Australia work on the same financial year, the peak summer vacation time does mean that for a period from just prior to Christmas until mid/late January there is often a window when business is less frantic and there’s the chance to sit down and reflect. Even if only briefly (and perhaps only at the beach!).
So if I were a PR Director as 2010 comes to an end the overall question I would be asking myself is:
Did I really get myself as an executive, and PR as a discipline, better accepted within our organisation during 2010?
Then as an exercise in self-analysis here’s 10 questions I would be asking myself about the PR performance of myself and my PR Department during the 2010 year:
1) What were the three top contributions I believe the PR team made to the organisation? Were they adequately recognised by those we worked for and with?
2) What was the key breakthrough I personally, or PR as a communications discipline, achieved in our organisation during the year? While I recognise it, did my peers equally recognise it?
3) Did we as a PR team have some failures during the year? If so what were the key reasons for these? Were there common threads to them? What did I learn from them, am I really on top of the problems and will they be avoided or overcome in 2011 and beyond?
4) What was the key success achieved by my internal PR team? Did I adequately recognise it and make my team aware of my pleasure at their success? Did we celebrate our successes as a team?
5) Did I do enough to individually develop, encourage – and reward – the key members of my PR team? Did I do enough mentoring? Do they all have clear guidelines as to their roles, responsibilities and career paths? Do they all know the areas I believe they contribute best in, and those where they need to work harder at?
6) What was the key success achieved by my PR agency? Did I adequately recognise it, and make the members of the PR agency team aware of my pleasure at their contribution and success? Likewise, if there were some areas for concern was I ‘up front’ and transparent about these?
7) How have I related to, and worked with, my executive peers within the organisation? Which relationships are strong and why is that so? Which relationships are not as robust as they could be? Why is that so and what do I need to do to make them better?
8) Is there a particular element of the way we as a PR Department work, and provide services, to other departments that I know is not as good as it should be? What can/should I do to address this in the months ahead? Is the structure of the PR Department right for what the organisation expects us to deliver?
9) How is my relationship/reputation with the key executive whom I report to? Has it progressed/matured during 2010? If there are areas where there are still misunderstandings about PR and its contribution, what do I need to do to address these?
10) What are the 5 things I need to concentrate in 2011 – either in my personal style and the way I work, or because I recognise that these are what the organisation will be looking for public relations and communications to deliver?
This is the last of my blogs for 2010. If you’ve been reading what I’ve had to say (and numbers have been steadily increasing month-on-month) I hope that you’ve got something out of it. If you are a new reader then I invite you to have a look through some of my comments – and then click the RSS feed so you can read what I have to say in 2011 (I normally blog two – and sometimes three –times a month.
Compliments of the season.
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