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Meet the Brit Who Could Save Our Sunday Shows

Adam Tiouririne | Bio | Posts
15 Aug 2014 | 10:04AM

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, Britain’s central bank sought a new leader to face new challenges. But Governor Mervyn King’s successor as master of the Pound wouldn’t be a Brit: The UK chose a Canadian, Mark Carney, to lead the Bank of England. Analysts crowed that the “huge surprise” was a “very smart move”. And that unorthodox appointment gets me thinking about another major personnel change, closer to home.

A transatlantic infusion is just what America needs to revive an important political institution of its own: Meet the Press.

NBC’s public affairs flagship has hit rough seas. In the Sunday ratings, ABC’s This Week and CBS’s Face the Nation have sunk the once-dominant Meet the Press. Outgoing moderator David Gregory inspires a phrase I learned in Tennessee for someone who seems fine enough but just hasn’t quite cut it: Bless his heart. (Or his brain, which NBC was colorfully rumored to have psychoanalyzed back in April — a measure the network denies taking.)

As the anti-Gregory drumbeat turned deafening, NBC confirmed late yesterday that the host would be replaced by NBC News political director Chuck Todd — an exciting enough choice for a political nerd like me.

But while Meet the Press chatter rages in America, a placid retirement begins across the pond.

On June 18, 2014, ended the reign of British television’s aggressive, abrasive, brilliant, bearded (sometimes), sneering grand inquisitor, Jeremy Paxman.

For my uninitiated fellow Americans: “Paxo” (the British word for Paxman) joined The Beebs (the British word for the BBC) in 1972 and became presenter (the British word for host) of Newsnight (the British word for the BBC’s nightly newscast) in 1989. His famously forthright interviews have changed the trajectory of public debates, policy plans, and even entire political careers — a journalistic force long, perhaps always, missing from stateside TV.

June 27, 2012: Paxman interviews Chloe Smith, a Conservative MP and Treasury Minister, about the surprise cancellation of a planned rise in fuel duty (gas tax). Smith, at age 30 with just three years of Parliament service, would be justified to complain that she was thrown to Newsnight‘s shark too early. She was out of her Treasury post within months.

May 13, 1997: Paxman, in his most notorious interview, repeats the same question 12 times to senior government minister Michael Howard.

May 16, 2002: Paxman confronts Prime Minister Tony Blair with a series of sensitive issues from Blair’s first five years in office.

September 25, 2008: Paxman speaks with then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a sample of the rare intensity he would bring to Washington.

And now, retired from the BBC, Paxman is available.

Paxman’s openly adversarial style isn’t just foreign to the United States; its closest American cousins are actually derided as gotcha journalism. But if a politician truly believes that farmers shouldn’t serve in the Senate or that “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”, then he or she should certainly be gotten.

Instead of doing the getting, many of our television reporters give us unmoderated shouting matches and gently lobbed softballs and — I could go further but, in the words of America’s newscasters, we’re gonna have to leave it there.

We need less access journalism, and more gotcha journalism.

Piers Morgan’s ill-fated CNN run gave us a taste of British grilling (Morgan, for his part, is not a Paxman fan.) and legendary Meet the Press host Tim Russert offered an American flavor at times. But on Newsnight, Paxo did it consistently for a quarter-century.

With the rumors of David getting Chucked finally realized, we’re left to dream sweetly of the Meet the Press that could’ve been. Paxman’s next move is unclear. He’s displayed Hillary-esque coyness when pressed about joining BBC rival Channel 4. But NBC News President Deborah Turness, as a veteran herself of Britain’s ITV, would be the right leader to lure Paxman, 64, to Washington.

Recent polls show that Americans disapprove, more firmly than in decades, of not just Congress as a whole but also their own local representatives. Far from alienating viewers, Paxman’s unflagging skepticism might have captured the zeitgeist and catapulted Meet the Press back to its top Sunday spot.

One transatlantic transplant is already the head of Britain’s 300-year-old central bank. Sundays could’ve been even better with Jeremy Paxman as the face of America’s longest-running TV program.

Share your thoughts in the comments here, or tweet them to @Tiouririne. (Paxman himself, by the way, hates Twitter.)

August 15, 2014/by Adam Tiouririne

What is PR, Really? Please discuss…

Blog, Communication, Framing, Power of Communication, Worth Reading

Helio Fred Garcia | Bio | Posts
5 Aug 2014 | 2:56PM

I started working in public relations in 1980 and started teaching it to graduate students at New York University in 1988. In all that time, the perennial question I’ve heard from clients and students is, What is PR, really… And the emphasis is always on the really.

And as I listened to their proposed answers, and read the books purporting to provide an answer, I came to the conclusion that people’s definitions of PR were like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.

There were six men of Hindustan,
to learning much inclined,
Who went to see an elephant,
though all of them were blind,
That each by observation
might satisfy his mind.

Each grasps just a part of the elephant and assumes the whole animal is like the part. So the man who grabs the tusk thinks the elephant is a spear; the one who grabs the tail thinks it’s a rope; the one who hugs the leg thinks it’s a tree, and so on. And then they argue – each holding to his firm conviction that the elephant is solely what he experienced.

We have this argument even to this very day.

We had it when I started in the field, when high technology meant upgrading from a manual to electric typewriter and from a rotary dial to touch-tone phone. We have it today among faculty members and graduate students in NYU’s M.S. in PR/CorpComm program. And we’ll keep having it well into the future: long after social networking is considered as quaint as my old IBM Selectric.

And now there’s a forum where this discussion can take place, conceived and curated by, among others, my friend and colleague Andy Green. Andy, who is based in Britain, was voted Outstanding PR Practitioner of the Year by members of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in 2013. He is the author of seven books translated into eight languages.

And he is part of a team of six senior PR pros from Britain and South Africa who have started an initiative called #PRredefined. It includes a discussion forum that creates a community around this debate. And it starts with a Kindle e-book that is available to students free of charge and to others at a nominal fee.

And I’m delighted to invite my colleagues on this side of the pond — including my graduate students, who themselves come from the all ends of the earth — to engage in this debate.

From the book #PRredefined:

“As public relations practice continues in the 21st century there is a growing sense that it needs better theory to provide a foundation and sustenance for public relations practice. Theory is not something abstract, remote from real-world — dare we say it — ‘academic’.

Having good theoretical underpinnings to what you do provides firm foundations for your day-to-day activity. It enables you to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ quicker to whatever challenge you face. Good theory provides clarity and purpose to your mission.

This ebook is seeking to create new ways forward, new ideas to take the profession forward, to overcome its potential dangers as well as grow with any new opportunities.

Practitioners and academics with concerns and fears for the future of their profession are sharing their thoughts on the challenge of #PRredefined

They seek to act as a catalyst, a touch paper lit to create new momentum for inspiration, insights and ideas.

#PRredefined is not an end product. It is not claiming to provide a definitive answer – although it likes to feel it is proffering an intelligent way forward with some credible concepts to consider as possible solutions. Rather, it is seeking to start a symbiotic debate that can grow and create new thoughts, ideas and ultimately effective PR theory for 21st century practice.”

#PRredefined consists of three elements:

a collection of Forethoughts and Post thoughts articles containing commentaries about the need to redefine public relations and for a new theoretical framework for professional practice

submissions for redefining public relations or adding to its theoretical framework

a call to action inviting you to contribute to a subsequent debate to contribute to the goal of redefining public relations and creating a new theoretical framework

I’m honored to be one of the Forethoughts authors, and to be in the company of my friend and fellow Forethoughts author Christophe Ginisty, 2013 president of the International Public Relations Association.

What is the Essence?

So here’s my contribution to the argument. What I struggle to find is the essence of it all: What is it that all the competing definitions have in common?

The first people to make a living practicing what we would recognize as PR were two Greeks in the fifth Century BC, Corax and Tisias. The man who would eventually be called St. Augustine was a PR person before he found religion; he then brought those skills to his ministry. The person who was the first in the modern era to call himself a “public relations counselor” was Edward L. Bernays. He also became a thought leader, writing the first modern book on PR, Crystalizing Public Opinion, and teaching the first modern course on it, at New York University, both in 1923. What do they all have in common, with each other and with PR as it’s practiced in the second decade of the 21^st Century?

Bernays noted in 1923 that it’s hard for PR people to define what they do:

“Indeed, it is probably true that the very [people] who are themselves engaged in the profession are as little ready or able to define their work as the general public itself. Undoubtedly, this is due, in some measure, to the fact that the profession is a new one. Much more important than that, however, is the fact that most human activities are based on experience rather than on analysis.”[i]

Redefining PR

This is a discussion worth having. And every generation needs to have it, if for no other reason than to move past the particulars of their own experience and into the higher vantage point of analysis. And to understand both the relevance and the power of the profession. That is the point of #PRredefined. It is an important contribution to the discussion. (And, as co-author Andy Green notes, in implicit agreement with Bernays, the discussion has to be outside of the bubble of the day-to-day practice of PR.)

I agree with the #PRredefined authors that PR needs to be redefined, or it will die. Actually, it isn’t that PR needs a new definition. Rather, we need a new understanding. I believe the definition has been here all along. But we have lost sight of it as we’ve become infatuated with new technologies and with the quickening pace of change.

We need to move from the particular (tusk, tail, leg) to the elephant as a whole. Yes, we need to understand the particulars. But we need also to understand that the whole is more than the individual parts, or even the sum of the parts. Not all elephants have tusks. That doesn’t make them less of an elephant. Not all images of elephants show the tail. But we still recognize the elephant when we see it.

The Essence

So what I grapple with is this: what is the essence of PR? What do our clients most value? What description is as valid in an oral society and in the age of social networking? What definition applies equally to those who work with tree-based media (paper) and those who work with electron-based media?

I believe the answer is also found in Bernays’ 1923 book:

“The public relations counsel is the pleader to the public of a point of view. He acts in this capacity as a consultant both in interpreting the public to his client and in helping to interpret his client to the public. He helps to mold the action of his client as well as to mold public opinion.”[ii]

Applied Anthropology

For more than 25 years, to my clients, with my students, and in my books, I’ve described it this way: When we do our best work we function as an applied anthropologist. Like an anthropologist, we do active fieldwork to understand a group’s social and power structure, values, predispositions, and behavioral triggers. These days we can figure this out to a very granular level. We then make predictions based on these insights, helping clients understand how any given group is likely to react to any given stimulus. The applied part is then to organize activity to provoke the reaction we want, and then to be in active relationship with our stakeholders, in continuous and mutual adaptation with each other.

And when we do it well, we do it by connecting with people, authentically, honestly, but effectively. We can’t move people unless we meet them where they are. And then we invite them to move with us. This raises a host of ethical questions.

And again we find answers in Bernays:

“The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don’t believe in is propaganda. Each of these nouns carries with it social and moral implications. Education is valuable, commendable, enlightening, instructive. Propaganda is insidious, dishonest, underhanded, misleading.”[iii]

I welcome being part of the discussion here prompted by Andy and his coauthors.

Paradoxically, I believe we find the future of PR by returning to our core, as articulated 90 years ago (but so often forgotten in the day-to-day bump and grind of our work).

Everything old is new again.

Your contributions to the debate are welcomed.

Onward…

…….

The authors of #PRredefined are:

“Andy Green was voted ‘Outstanding PR Practitioner of the Year’ by CIPR members in 2013. He enjoys a portfolio career as a PR consultant, university lecturer, brand story-teller and creative thinking skills trainer. His published work is translated into eight languages includes ‘Creativity in Public Relations’ (4th edition Kogan Page 2010) and ‘Tubespiration! (Tangent Books 2013)

Professor Anne Gregory is Director of the Centre for Public Relations Studies at Leeds Business School and Chair of the Global Alliance, the worldwide confederation of public relations professional associations. Anne has written and edited over 70 books, book chapters and articles and holds the CIPR Sir Stephen Tallents Medal for her Outstanding Contribution to the Profession.

Philip Sheldrake is Managing Partner, Euler Partners. He is the author of The Business of Influence: Reframing Marketing and PR for the Digital Age (Wiley, 2011), and Attenzi – a social business story (2013).

Chris Skinner, APR and Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) is a research associate at the Durban University of Technology and a senior consultant with the East and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI). He is a leading researcher and writer in the public relations field in Africa and[…]”

Stephen Waddington is European Digital & Social Media Director, Ketchum and President-Elect 2014 of the CIPR. His published work includes Brand Anarchy (Bloomsbury, 2012), Share This (Wiley 2013), Share This Too (Wiley 2013) and Brand Vandals (Bloomsbury, 2013).

Paul Willis is Director of the Centre for Public Relations Studies at Leeds Business School. He is the co-author of Strategic Public Relations Leadership (Routledge, 2013) and a contributing author to Exploring Public Relations (3rd edition, Prentice Hall). His research can also found in the PR field’s leading academic journals.”

Excerpt From: Andy Green. “#PRredefined.” iBooks.

[i] Edward L. Bernays, Crystalizing Public Opinion, Boni & Liveright, 1923, p. 13.

[ii] Bernays, ibid., p. 59.

[iii] Bernays, ibid, p. 212.

August 5, 2014/by Helio Fred Garcia

Chinese Edition of The Power of Communication Getting Positive Reception in China

Blog

Logos Consulting Group is pleased to report that the Chinese language edition of The Power of Communication, Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively, by Logos president Helio Fred Garcia, is enjoying a very positive reception in China.

The original English language edition of the book was published by FT Press/Pearson in May, 2012. The Chinese language edition was published jointly in Hong Kong by Pearson Education Asia Ltd and in Beijing by Publishing House of Electronics Industry in May, 2014.

The Chinese edition includes two forewords by prominent Chinese communication experts: Qian Xiaojun and Li Pan.

Qian Xiaojun

Qian Xiaojun is a full professor in the Department of Leadership and Organization Management and assistant dean of international collaboration and accreditation of the School of Economics and Management of China’s leading university, Tsinghua University. She has won numerous awards for teaching and research from Tsinghua. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1992, and her M.S. in mathematics in 1988 from Purdue University, Indiana, USA, and B.S. in applied mathematics from Tsinghua University in 1982. Her research interests focus on Managerial Communication, Corporate Communication and Cross-Cultural Communication, Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Management Education, Business School Accreditation. She was a Sloan International Faculty Fellow at MIT Sloan School of Management in 1997 and 2001.

Qian Xiaojun
Professor and Assistant Dean
School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing

In her foreword, Professor Qian writes:

“Books about communication can be found everywhere — whether they are imported from other countries or complied by domestic experts. However, The Power of Communication by Helio Fred Garcia is different.

People often say that business is war without bullets, but rarely does anyone view communication using the principles of war. Garcia uniquely combines the Marine Corps key manual, “Warfighting,” for use in the business and political world. It serves as the core of The Power of Communication.

The book is based on a great deal of authentic communication cases in both the business and political field and explains profound theories in simple language. It cites clear and conclusive concepts from the military material and translates them into communication principles in business and political settings. All those successful and failed cases, along with the vivid description by the author, not only make the book extremely readable and enjoyable, but also enable readers to learn lessons from both positive and negative events.

The book could be reference books for universities or leaders.
It will also be helpful for readers to read one case each day before sleeping.”

Li Pan

A second foreword was written by Li Pan, CEO of Bonzwise Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, and communication lecturer for Tsinghua University in Beijing and and Jiao Tong University in Shanghai.

Li Pan, CEO of Bonzwise Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, and communication lecturer for Tsinghua University and Jiao Tong University.

Mr. Li is a renowned business negotiation expert and a negotiation and communication consultant for major Chinese municipal and provincial governments. He was a communication trainer for Shanghai Expo 2010. He is a frequent commentator on China Central Television and Shanghai Media Group. For more than 30 years Mr. Li has helped multinational enterprises and local provincial governments negotiate and attract investment.

In his foreword Mr. Li writes:

“To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention when the Publishing House of Electronics Industry asked me to write the foreword of The Power of Communication. However, when I carefully read the book chapter by chapter, it resonated with my years of practical communication consulting.

It is my great honor to read the Chinese version of the book in advance and write this foreword. I recommend this practical and unique communication bible to every reader.

We have very many books about leadership and communication management in the Chinese book market. Some are classic, but lots of them are inferior-quality products. They either merely analyze theories, or just train tactic lessons. Even those books with examples and concepts are outmoded and full of similar theories. To sum up, they are not convincing. After years of practical consulting in communication, I believe that as a practical subject, communication deserves to have a more organized theoretical system and training technique.

This book by Helio Fred Garcia meets this need from the aspect of leadership. It analyzes the theoretical skeleton and practical tactics based on tons of fresh cases. Readers unconsciously follow the author, thinking of ways and solutions to handle with various business dilemmas.”

Grace Gu

An online review was recently posted on Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter) by Gu Qiubei (Grace Gu).

Gu Qiubei (Grace Gu), Speech Lecturer in the English College, Shanghai International Studies University

Ms. Gu is a Speech Lecturer in the English College of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU). She teaches public speaking, debate, interpretation, and intensive English reading. She has translated many books from English to Chinese, including The Art of Public Speaking.

In her review of The Power of Communication Ms. Gu wrote:

“Lots of things look accidental, but actually they are inevitable. It is my fate to meet this book, The Power of Communication, by Helio Fred Garcia. This book is real and sincere. You can imagine a sophisticated sage teaching everything from his communication experience. As a public speaking trainer, I think this book should be on the must-read list for national MBA programs and for people who want to communicate effectively.”

Online Reviews

In addition to the endorsements by these prominent communication experts, the Chinese edition of The Power of Communication is has received very positive reviews at the leading Chinese online booksellers. As of late July a total of 26 online reviews have been posted on the four top booksellers; 21 were Five-Star reviews; 5 were Four-Star. These include 12 Five-Star reviews out of 12 total reviews on China’s leading bookseller, Dangdang.com.

Social Media

The book is also enjoying growing visibility on Chinese social media, through both the author’s and the publisher’s Weibo accounts. If you are on Weibo you can follow the author by clicking here.

July 27, 2014/by Logos Consulting Group

On Wall Street, Reputation, and Recovery: Guest Blog by Julia Sahin

Blog, Communication, Crisis Communication, Reputation, Trust, Worth Reading

Helio Fred Garcia | Bio | Posts
17 Jul 2014 | 5:48PM

One of the joys of teaching in NYU’s MS in PR/CorpComm program is the ability to work with very smart graduate students, in the classroom, as advisor in their capstones (theses), and as a mentor. Some of these students have great potential, and I’m certain represent the future generation of leaders in the field.

This year I had a bumper crop of capstone advisees (six), who offered some significant insights into some very important topics. Over the next several months I will be sharing some of their insights.

I’m delighted today to share a guest blog from one of these students, Julia Sahin, who graduated in May. I had the good fortune of having Julia in my Strategic Communication course and then to supervise her research and writing on her capstone.

Julia chose a challenging topic: Reputational Effects of Regulatory Action on Mega Banks: A Comparative Analysis of Goldman Sachs’ Abacus and JP Morgan’s Squared. To be able to do that, she had to develop a deep understanding of reputation in general, regulation of the securities markets, the particular transactions that drew regulatory concern, each of the banks’ reactions to it, and the consequence on the banks’ reputations. You can see her capstone here.

Along the way she developed insights that go well beyond the two banks and their regulatory settlements. She provides insights that all financial institutions can harvest and from which all communication professionals can benefit. I commend them to you here:

On Reputation…

By Julia Sahin

Julia Sahin

A few weeks ago, Makovsky issued its 2014 Wall Street Reputation Study. The research found that the recession is still a primary reason that financial institutions continue to be perceived negatively. I believe the financial crisis is where it started, but not where it ended. From my research on the reputational effects of regulatory action on banks, I found two other reasons.

The first is additional crises and wrongdoing.

Financial institutions continue to make headlines because of illegal and/or unethical behavior. This includes guilty verdicts and settlement agreements. One institution’s association with this behavior has an overarching impact on other institutions and on the industry. Most recently, the culprit is Citi.

The second is how financial institutions handle them.

There is no doubt that reactions, responses and remedial actions have improved since 2009. But the accrual of poor crisis management, past and present, is still a pain point.

All of this stems from the industry’s delayed realization that it had a reputation problem after the onset of the economic recession. One financial journalist I interviewed spoke about a period of denial that banks went through in 2010 and 2011. The banks thought it was business as usual, but everyone else knew the business environment had changed dramatically.

Three years later, the banks have accepted the change, but have only recently begun to work on their reputations.

David Weidner, of Wall Street Journal’s “Writing on the Wall” column, wrote that banks have put reputation management on the back burner because it’s not seen as a priority. Their services are a necessity to clients who will continue to pay for them regardless of public perception.

While this is true, a quality reputation is a competitive advantage. It evokes a more favorable view from the stakeholders who are important to the banks. For example, a better reputation means…

…less regulatory action and regulation.
…a better foundation of trust for relationship-based services (an industry trend).
…less biased media coverage.
…employment candidates of a higher caliber, who are flocking to the tech space these days.
…an engaged workforce, meaning increased productivity.
…less attention from the Hill.
…more capital from premium stock and product prices.
…less attention from activist investors.
…better analyst reviews.
…less public scrutiny.

A number of professionals who are immersed in this every day, and I, agree that now is the time for financial institutions to concentrate on repairing their reputations.

On simplifying the complexity…

The finance industry is unique in that it has a challenging regulatory environment and extremely complex products. Turning around the sector’s reputation, or an individual institution’s reputation, seems overwhelming. Communicating with stakeholders differently seems daunting.

Three things need to stay top of mind:

First, it will take time.

Second, the problem won’t fix itself.

And third, tackling different segments one at a time will contribute to the whole.

The question is how to take on such a large feat for a giant institution whose reputation may not be a priority.

The solution is stakeholder management. By looking at an institution’s stakeholder list, the benefits of an optimal reputation should be clear. Those benefits should be tied to business goals, and should be the reason to initiate the program. Then, work backwards from the optimal state, then forward, to achieve it.

Breaking down the complexity of a reputation program into moving parts, motivated by business benefits, is the best first step. The list above can be a good starting point.

……………………………………………..

Your feedback is welcome.

Fred

July 17, 2014/by Helio Fred Garcia

Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication to be published in Chinese

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Logos Consulting Group is pleased to report that Reputation Management: The Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication, second edition, will be published in Chinese in 2016.

Reputation Management, second edition, is published by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, a global publisher based in London, specializing in quality academic books, journals, and online reference. The co-authors are John Doorley and Helio Fred Garcia. Doorley is the former Academic Director of the NYU Master’s in PR and Corporate Communication. He spent 13 years as head of corporate communication at Merck, Inc., during which Merck was frequently rated one of the most admired companies by Fortune magazine. Garcia is the president of Logos Consulting Group and an adjunct professor of management and communication at New York University.

The book includes chapters on social media by Logos consultant Laurel Hart and on corporate responsibility by Logos senior advisor Anthony Ewing. It also includes contributions from Logos Institute senior fellow Raleigh Mayer.

The publisher of the Chinese edition will be Tsinghua University Press, the publishing house of Tsinghua University, the top-rated university in China. In 2011 Helio Fred Garcia taught at Tsinghua University as a Distinguished International Scholar.

The Power of Communication will also be published in Korean in 2016 by Alma books.

July 17, 2014/by Logos Consulting Group

Third Edition of Reputation Management Now Available for Pre-Order

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Logos Consulting Group is pleased to announce that the finished manuscript of the Third Edition of Reputation Management: the Key to Successful Public Relations and Corporate Communication has been submitted to the publisher, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. The Third Edition is scheduled to be published in late 2014 and is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

The book’s coauthors are John Doorley and Helio Fred Garcia (president of Logos Consulting Group). The co-authors’ work is supplemented by contributions by leading practitioners who wrote chapters on their areas of particular expertise. From Logos Consulting Group these include Anthony Ewing (Corporate Responsibility) and Laurel Hart (Social Media). The investor relations chapter was jointly written by Helio Fred Garcia and Eugene L. Donati. Other chapter authors include Ed Ingle (Government Relations), head of government relations at Microsoft, Jeff Grimshaw and Tanya Mann (Employee Communication), partners at MG Strategy, Louis Capozzi (PR Consulting), president of the PRSA Foundation and former CEO of MSL Group.

The First Edition of Reputation Management was published in 2007. The Second Edition was published in 2011, and will be translated into Korean and published in Korea in 2016 by Alma Press. The Third Edition, to be published in late 2014, includes significant changes to reflect the rapidly-changing landscape in public relations and corporate communication. The Third Edition takes a much more global focus, with case studies from around the world incorporated into the chapters. It also integrates social media into all chapters.

Co-author John Doorley is also co-author (with Fraser Seitel) of Rethinking Reputation: How PR Trumps Marketing and Advertising in the New Media World.

July 2, 2014/by Logos Consulting Group

Mind the Elves

Blog, Leadership

Kristin Johnson | Bio | Posts
26 Jun 2014 | 2:38PM

There was a delightful story published in BBC News recently that I can’t let go. The editor reported on why a town in Iceland halted construction for a new Reykjavik-suburban highway after concerned campaigners protested the development. The citizens’ concern? They warned that it would disturb and provoke elves living in its path.

Elves in Iceland, for those who believe, are typical people, but invisible to most humans. They are called Huldufolk, or “hidden people.”

Though charming, it seems very strange that folklore would be so powerful of an influence that it would override infrastructure development, which is especially important to a country still climbing out of significant economic struggle.

Thinking about Iceland’s elf protection more, however, it makes a beautiful metaphor for considering the hidden stakeholders in any business interaction.

A strong business strategy accounts for all stakeholders – even the “elves” – those who may be quiet and concealed. Additionally, it’s important to understand the nature of relationships that exist among stakeholder groups. In Iceland’s case, the elves had their human advocates, who were willing to protect Elf interests – or at least preserve their own interests by evading Elf retaliation.

In some ways, this could be another way to look at what’s happened with big-box retail darling, Target. The WSJ recently reported the retailer has “lost its way under ousted CEO Gregg Steinhafel,” and goes on to detail how creative risks that helped build the company took a backseat to rigid performance metrics. As the CEO tried to advance the company with an eye on profit, he established layered management that delayed decision-making and dismissed internal frustration. This ultimately led to “deep malaise” within the company, as well as slumping sales, with customer traffic falling in six straight quarters.

While there were many factors involved in Target’s decline – including a very serious security breach – it is clear that the elves were overlooked by the ruler of the land – er, the CEO. Reliable customers and suppliers were not getting the same experience out of their relationship with the Target they had come to know and love. Long-time employees felt their opinions were overlooked and their creative heritage was undermined in favor of non-differentiating profit drivers. Ultimately, market dissatisfaction laddered up to unhappy shareholders, a tougher stakeholder group for the CEO to overlook. Not surprising, the board ultimately asked the CEO to resign.

Target is now transforming. Freedom, speed and creativity are being reinfused into the organization. “Leadership teams” have replaced “executive committees” and the company hopes, through time, to reclaim the customer experience that brought the company to fame in the first place. And while the magic of ‘Tar-zhay’ might not be fully restored, it looks like with this new strategy, there will be a little more consideration for stakeholders – even the elves.

June 26, 2014/by Kristin Johnson

The Power of Communication Chinese Edition Published

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Logos Consulting Group is pleased to announce the publication of the Chinese Edition of The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty, and Lead Effectively by Logos President Helio Fred Garcia.

The book was published jointly by Pearson Education Asia Ltd in Hong Kong and Publishing House of Electronics Industry in Beijing under the title 沟通的力量.

The English edition was published in May, 2012 by FT Press, an imprint of Pearson.

The book is based on the premise that communication has power, but as with any powerful tool, if it is not used effectively it can dissipate or can cause self-inflicted harm. Harnessing the power of communication is a fundamental leadership discipline.

This book is about how leaders can inspire, persuade, and earn the confidence of stakeholders through verbal engagement. About how they can build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively.

The book does three things:

It translates core leadership and strategy doctrine of the United States Marine Corps, as embodied in its Warfighting manual, into guidelines for effective leadership communication. These provide an important conceptual framework, and the individual concepts serve as guideposts along the journey the reader takes. But they’re merely the starting point.
It applies best practices in leadership communication drawn from the author’s 35 years of advising and coaching leaders, and from his 27 years of teaching management and communication in graduate programs at NYU and other universities around the world. This is the meat of the book—the big takeaway. It could easily exist without the Warfighting concepts, but the author has found that the combination is more powerful than either standing alone.
It closes with the Nine Principles of Effective Leadership Communication, drawn from the earlier chapters of the book, that can serve as reference points for a leader’s own communication ability.

In the US the book has been very well received. It has twice been named to the US Marine Corps Commandant’s Professional Reading List, for 2013 and 2014, as one of eight leadership titles. It is required reading at a number of universities in the US, Switzerland, Peru, Chile, Israel, and other markets.

In late 2011 Garcia was named an International Distinguished Scholar by the leading Chinese university, Tsinghua University. He taught graduate students and leaders from Chinese government ministries, the Party, and heads of state-owned enterprises.

With the Chinese publication of The Power of Communication, Garcia will return to China later this year on a book tour that will include lectures, university teaching, public appearances, and client consulting.

June 19, 2014/by Logos Consulting Group

Kristin Johnson Joins Logos Consulting Group and the Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership

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Logos Consulting Group and the Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership welcome Kristin Johnson, senior advisor and senior fellow.

Kristin joins the Logos team with extensive global PR agency experience, where she provided brand support and strategic counsel on corporate communications efforts including issues and crisis management, corporate policy, thought leadership and stakeholder communications for a spectrum of U.S. and non-U.S. clients.

“I have known Kristin for nearly a decade and seen consistent excellence in both her work and her character,” said Fred Garcia, President, Logos Consulting Group and the Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership. “She joins us after many years at leading, global PR firms and her rich corporate experience will be an asset to our clients as we help them navigate all life cycles of crisis situations.”

Providing strategic guidance to clients to help restore trust and confidence among stakeholders is just one role Kristin will play at Logos. As part of her Institute role, Kristin will embrace both teaching and learning. She is an adjunct professor of management and communication in New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies master’s level public relations and corporate communications program. She will teach PR Consulting for the fall semester. Additionally, Kristin is pursuing her CFA Institute Claritas^® Investment Certificate to enhance her partnership to global investment clients.

“Logos is a unique firm that, at the core, helps clients build and maintain trust and reputation. In today’s world, that is a tremendous task, which requires thoughtful, committed efforts to connect companies with their stakeholders in an authentic way,” said Kristin Johnson. “I believe these efforts benefit society as a whole and look forward to contributing to that goal with Logos.”

While Kristin works across multiple sectors, her expertise is in health, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals and biotech.

Kristin earned a Master of Science degree in public relations and corporate communications at New York University. In 2008, The Institute for Public Relations published Kristin’s thesis work, “Knowledge Management and The Personal Influence Model: An Opportunity for Organizational Enhancement.” Kristin graduated with dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in communication arts and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. She tweets at @KJView.

June 12, 2014/by Logos Consulting Group

The Power of Framing: GM’s Cobalt and the Failure to Understand

Blog, Communication, Crises, Crisis Communication, Crisis Management, Framing, Power of Communication, Reputation, Worth Reading

by Helio Fred Garcia

Imagine that you’re an executive at a large company.

You learn that one of your products – a good revenue generator but not a franchise-defining product – has a customer convenience issue. It sometimes does things that annoy customers. In particular, it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do 100 percent of the time. Several dozen customers have complained.

Given all you have on your plate, how urgent do you consider this problem? What kinds of resources do you devote to it?

Now consider a different scenario: You learn that this product has a significant safety defect. That safety defect, in turn, risk loss of life – in fact, it may already have cost some lives.

Given all you have on your plate, how urgent do you consider this problem? What kinds of resources do you devote to it?

Finally, what if the problems are one and the same? Is there a difference in your reaction to something described as a customer inconvenience compared to the same thing that’s described as a serious safety defect?

Customer Convenience v. Safety Defect

Herein lies what may finally be an explanation for the otherwise incomprehensible behavior at General Motors (GM)

The Power of Communication

Communication has power. But as with any powerful tool, if communication is not used effectively it can dissipate or cause self-inflicted harm.

That’s one of the lessons of the tragic events at GM that have just come to light this year.

I have taught elements of the GM Cobalt ignition switch crisis since it first became public back in the Spring. And in all the discussions, my students and I keep coming back to the same questions: Why did GM not fix the problem when they had a chance? Why did it take more than ten years? Did they simply not care? Did their cost/benefit analysis lead them to conclude that it was OK to keep an unsafe car on the road? We’ve been baffled.

So I’ve waited with anticipation for the formal report conducted by GM’s independent law firm. That report is now out, and it is stunning. Not just for its tale of incompetence and neglect. But also for providing an intriguing clue about how this baffling series of mis-steps could have happened in the first place.

I am indebted to author and Forbes columnist Carmine Gallo for first calling attention to what I cover below. Gallo’s June 9 post focused on how two words explain the massive failures at GM and how two different words could have prevented the fiasco in the first place. It’s worth reading.

The Valukas Report

The report, prepared by former US Attorney Anton R. Valukas, the chairman of the law firm Jenner & Block, was released on May 29. In the course of 315 pages it lays out the causes and tragic consequences of GM’s failures.

Anton Valukas

Three in particular caught my eye.

GM engineers failed to name the problem accurately.
That’s because the engineers didn’t understand how the cars worked (!?)
The engineers mis-framed the crisis and therefore it wasn’t taken seriously for more than 11 years.

Let’s take these one at a time.

1. GM engineers failed to name the problem accurately.

When the Cobalt’s ignition system switched from Run to Off or Accessory, it also turned off the electrical system.

But the engineers described it as a “moving stall” and didn’t seem to understand that the lack of electrical power meant that airbags wouldn’t deploy, with potentially catastrophic effects. So they told the media and others that a moving stall did not create a safety hazard.

From the Report:

“[T]hose individuals tasked with fixing the problem – sophisticated engineers with responsibility to provide consumers with safe and reliable automobiles – did not understand one of the most fundamental consequences of the switch failing and the car stalling: the airbags would not deploy. The failure of the switch meant that drivers were without airbag protection at the time they needed it most. This failure, combined with others documented below, led to devastating consequences: GM has identified at least 54 frontal-impact crashes, involving the deaths of more than a dozen individuals, in which the airbags did not deploy as a possible result of the faulty ignition switch.”

Chevrolet Cobalt

2. That’s because the engineers didn’t understand how the cars worked (!?)

From the Report:

“A critical factor in GM personnel’s initial delay in fixing the switch was their failure to understand, quite simply, how the car was built. GM had specifically designed the airbag system not to deploy, in most circumstances, in the event that the ignition switch was turned to Off or Accessory, a deliberate and sensible decision made to prevent passengers from being injured by airbags in parked cars.

In 2004, however, GM engineers, faced with a multitude of reports of moving stalls caused by the ignition switch, concluded that moving stalls were not safety issues because drivers could still maneuver the cars; they completely failed to understand that the movement of the switch out of the Run position meant the driver and passengers would no longer have the protection of the airbags.”

3. The engineers mis-framed the crisis and therefore it wasn’t taken seriously for more than 11 years. To me this is the most interesting.

From the Report:

“GM personnel viewed the switch problem as a “customer convenience” issue – something annoying but not particularly problematic – as opposed to the safety defect it was.

Once so defined, the switch problem received less attention, and efforts to fix it were impacted by cost considerations that would have been in immaterial had the problem been properly categorized in the first instance.”

It isn’t that GM didn’t care about safety. It did. The Report makes clear that when presented with safety problems GM acted responsibly.

From the Report:

“Indeed, in this same decade, GM issued hundreds of recalls at great expense (including at times when its financial condition was precarious) because in the great majority of instances, it correctly determined or agreed that the issues that came to its attention implicated safety and demanded prompt action. But in the case of the Cobalt, it did not do so.”

Why not? According to the Report, in 2005 a number of committees recommended a range of solutions, but they were rejected because they would be too costly. The report makes clear that such cost considerations would not have been in play if they had understood the connection between the stalls and the disabling of airbags – in other words, if they had understood the safety hazard.

Cobalt Ignition and Switch Assembly

Why didn’t GM recall Cobalt? The initial framing of the problem as a “customer convenience” problem meant it wasn’t seen as a safety concern, and therefore got a back burner.

From the Report:

“From 2004 to 2006, not one of the committees considering a fix for the switch – filled with engineers and business people whose job was to understand how GM’s cars were built and how different systems of the car interact – ever reclassified the problem from one of customer convenience to one of safety or demonstrated any sense of urgency in their efforts to fix the switch. GM’s Product Investigations group, charged with identifying and remedying safety issues, made the same mistake; it opened and closed an investigation in 2005 in the span of a month, finding no safety issue to be remedied.”

The tragedy is that the signs of a serious safety issue were there to be seen. But in the “customer convenience” frame GM engineers didn’t see it. It took people outside of GM who had not been influenced by the “customer convenience” frame to grasp the real problem.

From the Report:

“As the early committees failed to fix the problem, accidents and fatalities in which airbags did not deploy began coming to GM personnel’s attention, including GM’s in-house counsel and the engineers who worked with them. Those outside GM, including, in 2007, a trooper from the Wisconsin Safety Patrol and a research team from Indiana University, figured out the connection between the switch and the airbag non-deployment. Yet, GM personnel did not.”

The Power of Framing

According to the Berkeley cognitive linguist George Lakoff, frames are mental structures triggered by language.

George Lakoff, Cognitive Linguist, UCal Berkeley

When a frame is triggered, an entire worldview is triggered, and that determines the meaning of what comes next. When the frame is triggered, we tend to focus what’s within the frame, and to ignore what’s outside the frame.

And when we say something “makes sense,” we mean that something is consistent with the frame.

So when the GM engineers referred initially to a “moving stall” and called it a “customer convenience” problem, that frame determined the meaning of what followed. As a result there was no sense of urgency, so cost and other tasks took priority.

But what if the original engineers had framed the problem differently: if they had called the ignition switch problem a “safety defect”? The reaction could have been completely different.

Urgency makes sense when grappling with a safety defect, but not necessarily when facing a customer convenience issue. Conversely, cost becomes a challenge for a customer convenience issue, but not at all when grappling with a safety defect.

Of course, there were many other challenges at GM besides this basic failure of understanding. There was compartmentalization, turf, and a culture that included the “GM Nod,” defined in the Report as “when everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan of action, but then leaves the room and does nothing.” There was plenty of incompetence and indifference.

Lessons for Leaders and Communicators

But at one level the Report serves as a teachable moment:

1. How you name the problem goes a long way toward how you fix the problem.

2. Framing matters. The frame defines what makes sense and what is possible.

3. Situational awareness isn’t just about facts; it’s about understanding significance — and that comes from frames.

Your comments welcome,

Fred

June 12, 2014/by Helio Fred Garcia