Category: management

Four factors lead to communication team performance (and four benefits of it)

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

When I ask students in my PR Cases and Management class what it means that public relations is a “management function,” I usually get some form of the answer that public relations needs to be managed to be effective.

Lesson one in that class is that PR is a management function because it is a vital part of managing the entire organization, not just the communication function. Organizations that have healthy and mutual relationships with all stakeholders are more successful in every respect. The fundamental role of public relations is building and maintaining those relationships that are what scholars call “two-way symmetrical.” 

I also stress this in my graduate class in communications management. Managing communication is about making an entire enterprise successful, and the top communications person should have a “seat at the table” making decisions, not merely communicating them. 

My research is centered on this concept as well, with my presentations, papers and book chapters related in various ways to the various influences on the quality of public relations content. My most recent work is “Testing a Model of Drivers and Outcomes for Corporate Communications Team Performance” published this month in Public Relations Journal. The project was done in conjunction with my co-author Mark Bain, a veteran PR professional with experience in global PR in corporate and agency settings who now runs his own consultancy called upper90. We worked together with the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) to survey chief communications officers (CCOs) and their teams. You can read a blog post summary on the IPR website, and you can access the full paper in PR Journal.

The origin of the research is a conversation Mark Bain and I had about what makes communication teams effective, or what makes them perform well? This resulted in a previous paper about what professionals see as performance, what communication performance is in particular and what are the factors that cause high performance. From that we developed a model which we tested in our recently published article.

The Communication Team Performance Model tested in research

In a quick summary, we found consistency in four factors that drive performance in corporate communications teams, and then four outcomes from communication teams that perform at high level.

Advertisementshttps://c0.pubmine.com/sf/0.0.3/html/safeframe.htmlREPORT THIS AD

The performance drivers are:

  • Full commitment – Fully committed teams have a clear vision, a shared set of team values, and team members who care about the team’s success.
  • Focus on results – Focused teams have a strategy that maps directly to business objectives, the right systems, tools and processes, and discipline around continuous learning and improvement.
  • Constructive conflict – Creative and innovative teams embrace constructive conflict. They welcome different ideas and opinions, promote open and honest communication, and provide timely and healthy feedback.
  • Shared accountability – Teams that share accountability have clear and relevant measures, empower and support their members, and recognize and reward performance.

When teams optimize these drivers, they’re more likely to enjoy these positive outcomes:

  • Attract and retain the right talent for current and future needs
  • Have a sufficient budget for current needs and future investment
  • Receive visible support from the CEO and C-suite executives
  • Earn the respect and trust of internal and external stakeholders

I share this research in the classes mentioned above because it validates the theoretical concepts I teach with affirmation from top communications professionals in our survey. It also is a good example of integrating theory and practice when an academic like myself partners in research from a professional like Mark Bain. The research is better, the students benefit more, and I would hope the profession at large gains from the insights as well.

New app today helps brands engage individual investors

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

Brands that are also public companies have a new tech tool to help them engage individual investors on a more personal level. And it comes from a PR firm in Grand Rapids.

Tiicker is available for download from the Apple App Store today. It is touted as a way for individuals to invest in the brands they love, and to be rewarded for being an investor.

The new tech tool, an innovation for investor relations (IR) professionals, was developed and launched by Lambert, a Grand Rapids public relations firm with a long-time specialty in investor relations. Lambert Founder and CEO Jeff Lambert spoke about Tiicker with PRWeek for its Dashboard newsletter, a bi-weekly offering of articles about emerging communication technology (registration required).

Lambert notes that such direct and personal communication between companies and individual investors have often been set back by legal concerns, but that there is significant potential for marketing and investor relations teams to work together. The app is a method to convert consumers to investors and vice versa.

In fact, there is research that says many investors make stock purchase decisions based on their own consumer experience, or that of personal acquaintances. The consumer loyalty programs of punch cards, apps, email coupons and more have been around for years. Technology now makes this model possible for investors.

There may be multiple upsides to such a technology, including increasing outstanding shares, driving share price, converting day traders to buy and hold investors, and making consumers and investors complementary vs competitive publics to brand managers.

Whatever happens, it will be interesting to watch how this latest form of communication technology affects a specific area of public relations practice.

How to measure corporate communications team performance

~ penningink ~ 1 Comment

Does your corporate communications team get the respect it deserves from top management and other departments? Does your communications team perform well? How do you know? What actually is team performance?

On October 8, I presented research on measuring the performance of corporate communications teams. The presentation was part of the Future of Communications virtual conference series hosted by the Institute for Public Relations. The full paper is also available in the proceedings of the International Public Relations Research Conference where I presented the work in March of 2020 in Orlando (see page 392).

The presentation was based on research I did with Mark Bain, president of upper 90 consulting, in which we surveyed chief communications officers (CCOs) as well as members of their teams at large organizations around the world.

Our research is based on a previous project in which we identified what CCOs think performance actually is when it comes to corporate communications teams. That research was published in PR Journal and can be accessed online here. From that previous research we developed a model (shown below) and then tested it with actual communication teams.

The model shows the key drivers of team performance, based on input from our previous study, in the colored areas. These are aspects of the team itself. The gray gears on the outside are both outcomes and enablers of high performance and describe attributes of the overall organizational context.

The drivers in the model can be defined as follows:

•Full commitment—characterized by a clear and shared vision, clear behaviors based on appropriate values and skills, and individuals who care about team success;

•Focus on results—characterized by strategy aligned with overall business objectives, having the right systems and tools, a desire for continuous learning and improvement;

•Constructive conflict—characterized by tolerance of different ideas and opinions, open and honest communications, timely and healthy feedback;

•Shared accountability—characterized by clear and relevant measures, a team that feels empowered and supported by management, recognition and reward of performance.

Similar, the enablers and outcomes are further described as:

•Recruiting and retaining the right talent on the team, including both the right types of skills and the right number of people;

•Sufficient budget to achieve objectives and invest in the future;

•Respect and trust, both for each other within the team and trust by people in other units or department in the business;

•Visible support, expressed by the CEO and other members of the C-suite.

Results

We found that CCOs and members of their teams agreed with the model in the sense that the variables were what they considered to be factors in high team performance. Their responses with regard to how well their own team performed varied on this model.

The variables in the model where teams tended to do well in their estimation of team performance were: cares about team success, have a strategy tied to business outcomes, and the team has respect from others in the business. The variables where teams rated themselves the lowest were having the right systems and tools, having the right number of people on the team, having enough budget to achieve objectives, and having enough budget to invest in the future.

What is interesting is that the CCOs rated their team’s performance higher than did their direct reports, who in turn rated the performance higher than all other members of the team. This is especially true where aspects of performance are more perceptual (implicit) than tangible (explicit). CCOs may feel more accountable for the team and therefore rate it higher, or they simple have a broader view and consider the whole organization.

Another interesting finding is that those who perceive their team role to be “enabling business outcomes” are more likely to rate their communication team performance higher than those who see their roles as “driving stakeholder advocacy” or “providing communication.” This may be explained by the fact that those who see their role tied to business outcomes may work in an organizational culture that values communications and thus provides more resources that contribute to performance. Or, because their view of communications is more mature and considerate of the total organization, they may naturally act in ways that drive performance as opposed to just staying department focused and fulfilling a basic function.

In the end, the model can serve as a practical tool for CCOs to measure a baseline of communication team performance. They can look at how they stand with factors affected by the team, as well as the aspects of the organization that enable or inhibit performance. Then they can address lapses or weak areas specifically and continue measure and chart performance in a meaningful and motivational way going forward.

What Americans want from corporations–what PR provides

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

A recent survey from Just Capital has some very timely findings given the state of society in this turbulent year. It also reflects some lessons and reminders for public relations professionals at the top of their organizations, and the top of their game.

Among the findings from the survey are that most Americans think companies should promote an economy that serves everyone, but only half believe companies actually do this. Another key outcome is that the public increasingly thinks companies should balance the interests of shareholders with customers and employees. Most interesting to me is the ranking of most important issues for 2020 that show a high ranking for things like fair wages and benefits, ethics, environment, diversity and job creation.

This public sentiment about corporate performance is further evidence of my constant emphasis that public relations is a management function. Public relations is about maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with ALL publics. This sometimes means balancing competing interests between two publics, such as shareholders and employees, or customers and community. But the work of PR is to counsel management on policy to actually achieve this balance and not just proclamations to pay lip service to these notions. The publics are watching closely.

We are a century beyond the days of “press agentry” and the notion that PR is a mere tactical exercise to “raise awareness” or “get the word out” or put an organization in a “positive light.” Consider the emergence here in 2020 of terms and concepts that have been at the heart of enlightened public relations practice for years:

  • Stakeholder theory and stakeholder capitalism–the idea as I described above that public relations is concerned with far more than the news media, and more even than customers, to include shareholders, employees, community members and more;
  • ESG–environmental, social, and corporate governance are the integrated concern of companies, and in particular CCOs (chief communications officers) and those who lead the public relations for organizations;
  • Conscious capitalism–the philosophy that economic interests are bound in social interests and ethical practice;
  • Sustainability–many public relations professionals produce sustainability annual reports or include the “triple bottom line” of people, place and profits in their metrics;
  • Purpose—Corporate purpose goes beyond mission to stress not only a company’s interest but its positive impact on the world (what old economists call “positive externalities”).

Once again, what the public says it wants of companies and all the associated trendy management buzz words are what good public relations has done and is poised to do now. Listen to publics. Learn what they want. Creatively and ethically devise ways to balance organizational interests with those of all publics. It sounds trite, but work together for common good.

The intersection of normative theory and actual practice in public relations is upon us. I just hope that future surveys will show that people and executives will realize that this movement is something long called “public relations.”

‘Public Relations: A Management Function’ now available

~ penningink ~ Leave a comment

Penning PR Management Front Cover AppleThe book Public Relations: A Management Function is now available from Penning Ink.

The book is written and self-published by Timothy Penning, PhD, APR, Fellow PRSA, a public relations professor and consultant. It follows his previous books Media Relations Writing and Corporate Communications Writing.

Affordable and available as a paperback or e-book, the 90-page book stresses that public relations is a management function, and not merely a function to be managed. That means the purpose, practice and impact of public relations affects the entire organization and its overall goals, not just communications.

The first part of the book lays down foundations with chapters on public relations as management, integrating business knowledge and PR, and reviewing the accepted standards of the PR process. Part 2, the core of the book, drills down on the specifics of public relations work with six key publics–employees, community, government, investors, consumers and international. The final part of the book addresses crisis communications and integrated communications.

“Public Relations: A Management Function” can be used as a textbook for public relations management and case studies classes, supplementing it with cases from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil Awards winners, PR Week Awards winners, or cases from academic journals and trade publications. The practically written book is also useful for PR agency professionals and those who work in-house on communication teams.

The book sells for $4.99 as an e-book and $14.99 as a paperback and is available at Amazon, Apple, or Barnes and Noble. Links to all outlets are on the books page of the Penning Ink web site.