Inside out

I was forwarded this item about how an internal announcement to staff at Merryl Lynch was more blunt or open than previous external promouncements on the subject.

I wonder if this sort of coverage will encourage executives to think more carefully about IC or become more tight-lipped with the one audience that expects real frankness (and knows when it's not getting it)?

Liam

PS I enjoyed this blog posting about the pro's and cons of having a blog policy so I thought I'd share it...

Comments

[Sue]

The point this raises for me is actually not so much the internal-external one, as what any stakeholder group expects from 'official' communication.

Why should it be acceptable for any group to be fed a corporate line that tries to fudge the real situation? I think the sad thing for our profession is that this is now what many people expect from corporates and politicians, and they see our role as chief fudge maker. I often quote Edelman's trust barometer survey (and yes, I know the company itself has not been above a good bit of fudging), which found only 15% of people would trust a public relations person.

I was reading in PR Week yesterday how London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson has said he will cut the number of PROs working for the mayor if he wins, and talked about the "gigantic bat-eared Labour spin doctors who will be waiting to twist and distort our message".

I find it interesting in the UK at the minute to watch political leaders trying to distance themselves from 'spin' and convince us that they are serious, genuine people. Which means in Mr Johnson's case ditching nasty spin doctors. Or, in the opinion of one newspaper I was reading yesterday, in Gordon Brown's case, having a pretty dull and unengaging personal style. This particular newspaper professed itself not fooled, and said when Tony Blair tried to pull the wool over your eyes, at least he did it in a fairly charming and engaging way.

Sorry Liam, I don't know whether this is quite in line with your point, and maybe I'm just being unrealistic and idealistic. But I find it very depressing that so many now expect either nothing more than bland, careful statements that say nothing from official communication or, even worse, routinely having the wool pulled over their eyes. Are we really kidding ourselves that either internal OR external audiences are taken in by it?

[Liam]

Fantastically off the point!

Interesting that Boris Johnson claimed that the Mayor of London has 173 'spin doctors' - PR week put the press office staff at 15! Who's spinning who here?

But maybe Boris is counting something else? Maybe he's including ad people or marketeers? Maybe he's counting in the media relations staff at the London Fire Brigade and Transport for London? Either side could be right couldn't they?

I'm not at all with you on the 'Spin Doctors are a bad thing' line. The work of presenting a case is neither new or essentially immoral in my view. Would we say that good presentation is wrong if it's used to bring home the message about damage to the environment, promote an end to world poverty or boil down some complex policy choices into some simple political options?

Would the journalists who decry 'Spin' have us promoting complete and absolute frankness in every walk of life? Do all adverts have to have little caveats to tell us that the dancing car isn't real, should shop keepers admit whether an item is likely to be on sale in a month's time and should lawyers start prosecutions by saying "the arresting officer in this case isn't 100% certain that the defendent did it but as he's a fairly unsympathetic character is willing to see how far we can push it with a jury"? Yes and no....

Whenever I hear Alastair Campbell talking I find myself agreeing with him - he's a pretty reasonable sounding guy and has some interesting things to say that newspapers chose to ignore when it didn't suit their agenda. The problem comes in that when a discussion enters the political realm there are few undisputed facts - individual perception is reality. If one therefore consistently disagrees with someone (possibly because they have a different agenda or perspective) one will naturally suspect the honesty of the other person.

I know I'd be on shaky ground if I was implying that political communications managers are always paragons of honesty. But I don't think they spend every waking second lying or trying to cover-up some awful scandal - I think that they are honest most of the time (except when I don't happen to agree with them).

And they are not doing anything that the whole world does every single day - choosing the facts that support their agenda and downplaying those that are inconvenient. In fact many of us are unaware of the internal weighting system we apply to facts that don't support our prejudices.

Nor is this new - was there ever a golden age of honesty in public life and the media? I bet if I picked any era in hostory someone would be able to come up with a thousand examples where corporations, governments or social institutions were being "economical with the truth".

What I say is Thank God for the internet! We now can reserach and track down information more freely than ever before (although we need to be critical about where we source it). And now, just as we have always done, we need to be critical about what we are told - demanding evidence and proof is what you learn about at school and university...

[Debs]

This triggered off a memory for me which may not be directly relevant but... many, many years ago I was loudly praised for a well-written internal communications piece, which I subsequently found was based on lies. It was designed to fool people about the real reasons for a business decision and thus prevent them from speaking badly of the organisation.

I was bitterly angry about my naive part in this subterfuge.

Am I still naive to believe that we can use positive communication to do more that inform or 'manage expectations'? How I loathe that expression!

With appropriate planning and forethought is it not possible to create something that makes people want to work together?

They may not like what you are saying, but they understand it and, as much as they don't want to, they can accept what they are hearing. And it rings true with what is being said outside.

For this to work the suppliers of internal messages and external messages - in whatever format - must work together. Marketing, PR, IC, HR, Change Management - I find all these roles are starting to blur.