How many senior public relations practitioners really know their craft?
Why do so many public relations people seem to fail to properly advise their organisations, to prevent them making the awful mistakes they seem to perpetuate almost daily? A long-time friend and colleague of mine, Lawrence Sear, at the time the managing editor of the Daily Telegraph group of newspapers, once rebuked me for trying to explain the difference between good practice and bad: "There is no difference between good and bad public relations. At the heart of every public relations disaster on which we report is a highly paid public relations professional."
Joe Epley, the distinguished US public relations leader sent me today a report on the insanity of some politicians in South Carolina. It painfully reminded me of the lunacy of our own UK business leaders. This is my reply to Joe:
Oh heavens, Joe, you would laugh at politicians if you were not crying. And so it is with our own business.
What brings our public relations business into disrepute (.. or worse, the ridicule it too often deserves) is when major companies make a hash of things. Too often, when they are trying to battle a crises, whether they forget the basics or never knew them, they miss the massive and ultimately costly damage to their reputations. Currently we have both BA and BP making such a mess that it would be difficult to imagine how it could be worse. In such cases, the public relations professionals are conspicuous by their absence ... or, certainly, the absence of any intelligent advice.
Often it has been American companies that have set the horror standards (Coca-Cola, GE, MacDonald's etc) but we Brits can be unmatcahable when it comes to the height of idiocy in public comment and management of crises. Not surprisingly, Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP has been heavily criticised by all, particularly for his casual and ill-judged comments on the Gulf off Mexico disaster. Reporters have found out, as they would, that he sold a massive chunk of his shareholder in his company and, it is claimed, paid of a mortgage on his £1.2 million home, just weeks ahead of the disaster. Some journalists now believe or speculate, that he may have been aware of internal BP reports that queried the potential of a disaster in deep sea oil drilling. Other news stories have identified what are believed to be limited experience of operating at these depths, the risks and inefectiveness of safety policies. News stories suggest this pipeline had in place only a proportion of safety precautions that had been recommended by BP experts and advisers.
This is what was reported in the major UK serious paper, The Guardian:
In the face of such criticism, Hayward insisted that he had a "thick jacket", adding: "They've thrown some words at me, but I'm a Brit. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."
Clearly he is not worried about what the President of the United States has said as Mr Hayward has the ultimate defence... He is a Brit. So that is all right then.
Was this thought up as a suicide note by Mr Hayward? Or by his astute PR adviser in an attempt to get him to carry the can and very soon retire injured beyond repair? Trouble is he may take the company down with him, particularly if they plan to pay dividends massively bigger than the reparation costs in the Gulf.
Here is the link to the story and a couple of others you may be interested in, Joe:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/04/deepwater-horizon-leak-bp-criticism
And this blog is typical of much comment:
http://bornagainredneck.blogspot.com/2010/06/bps-tony-hayward-im-brit-i-can-take-it.html
Roger Haywood is a leading media commentator on issues. He is the only person to have chaired both the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He also helped form and chaired the world's largest network of independent business communications consultancies.
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