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Communications Ethics
Public or Private:
Institutions Need Communications Ethics
Author's Note: This article was written on July 29, 2001 prior to the key events that have defined personal and professional life in the subsequent decade: 9-11 and the current fiscal debacle. At that time I was an adjunct faculty member University of St. Thomas Graduate School of Business, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and the past president Public Relations Society of America, Minnesota Chapter. The company referenced was a major health care system, providing relevance in light of America's current bold health care initiative.
Allina Health System responded to the investigation of its operations by hiring outside communications consultants. Articles in the Star Tribune raised issues about the merits of this practice; a subsequent commentary piece struck an apologist chord for communications consulting.
Both parties miss the point. The real consideration is not whether organizations hire external expertise, the issue is about ethics, the role of professional communications, and the public’s right to know. Imbedded here is a sublime irony in the intense scrutiny of public organizations and relative disregard of private companies.
Professional communicators are in a unique position to guide overall decision-making at all levels of organizations, whether as insiders or outside counsel. A practitioner’s purest role is to track and analyze global and local issues, attitudes and trends, aligning the policies and procedures of an organization accordingly.
How do they do this? As was the case with Allina’s outside counsel, they use internal and external research, analyze the data, make recommendations that detail the impact of actions on the organization, and design communications programs to implement these recommendations, including how to respond to the media.
However, if Allina had and/or used a qualified senior communications officer in an executive management position of equal power and standing with its legal, financial, and operations executives, it could have avoided the problems that sparked the controversy to begin with. Hiring outside counsel to help in a crisis isn’t wrong. Allina’s seeming lack of dependence on ongoing ethical executive-level public relations practice is.
Lack of full and open disclosure about their operational practices, failure to cooperate with authorities, the arrogance of top management, are all aspects of the organization’s poor public relations. And least your reading public think that Mr. Quimby’s commentary speaks for our profession, it is never our role to “push the bounds” in any direction that is outside that of the public interest!
Many communications professionals, particularly those who choose the voluntary public relations accreditation (APR) offered by such national organizations as the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), are committed to a professional Code of Ethics that includes such precepts as: “conducting their professional life in accord with the public interest; never intentionally communicating false or misleading information; and never engaging in any practice which corrupts the integrity of the channels of communications or the process of government.” It is their role to insure that the organizations they serve follow suit.
Unfortunately, it seems that Allina and many organizations use their professional communicators as mere order takers rather than the reputation managers they are trained to be. Worse, many practitioners aren’t trained or don’t adhere to these standards.
Professional communicators use methodology and theory from such social sciences as sociology, anthropology and psychology, to determine human behavior. They study journalism, economics and organizational development. The best and brightest are trained to think and anticipate. It is their job to help organizations link and apply their findings to the legal, operational and economic aspects of the organization. This advice and counsel provides the ultimate vehicle for organizational success because it directs its gaze outside the organization and holds high an ethical perspective.
Yet, what makes the news are the misuses or transgressions of the profession. As in any field, there are good and bad public relations practitioners and good and bad public relations practice.
This gets us back to the question about public vs. private disclosure. It is naïve to demand less from private institutions than from public ones. How outdated this mindset seems. The very technology that many private organizations use to their marketing advantage holds the equal and opposite disadvantage (their view) for full and open disclosure of operations. Only the most proprietary data need be protected in our information-driven world.
Forward thinking CEOs understand that reasonable maximum disclosure creates trust with their multiple constituencies. Trust leads to credibility. And credibility builds a positive reputation or image. Nothing sells their products, services or stock better than a positive reputation. Communication professionals are uniquely trained and qualified to serve the role of reputation manager within an organization. Bringing such counsel into the mix as part of business as usual will keep organizations more in the favorable court of public opinion and less in the expensive courts of law.
Intentional Transitions
Over the course of the past 20 years as a communications advisor, counselor, coach and professor, I have come to realize that I possess a unique and authentic talent - an ability to help guide individuals to discover, to uncover their own hidden selves. Often my 'corporate' work - working under contract to organizations - looked like typical strategic planning and implementation. Clients brought me to the table to help solve a problem requiring public relations or internal communications expertise. They wanted me to help 'sell' a product, process or idea.
But, more often I found the solutions to problems were not in creating 'campaigns', slogans, or programs, but in working one-on-one with chief executives, directors, managers and staff, unearthing interpersonal conflicts that impacted even the most simple organizational operations. Tuff wars, petty jealousies, departmental power grabs - all became the grand de-railers of even the most straightforward programs.
And so I began to develop a program to work at a more interpersonal level with communication. I continue to evolve Intentional Transitions as an eventual workbook and workshop. When I was presented an opportunity to showcase my work at the popular evening called, Pecha Kucha Night in Maastricht, I choose a creative performance rather than a marketing presentation style. In this brief 7 minute format I weave my own original poems with accepted theories on human development to make a statement that each of us is capable of advancing a level on the human development hierarchy toward self-transformation and transcendence. Here is that performance courtesy of the PKN Maastricht website.
20x20 What is PechaKucha?
PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.
Confessions of a culture junkie: Pecha Kucha Maastricht makes the grade
William Willems: Flower Bombing
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Lonneke ten Hooven: Food Seduction
By Susan Schaefer
Reproduced with permission by Crossroads
June 29, 2009
I’ll admit I’m a culture junkie who until June 20, 2009 found the culture seen in Maastricht, well – politely boring, lacking an edge. Plenty of highbrow art and culture but not much of what I call ‘smart brow’ – that place where edgy meets elite.
I have a confession – I am a culture junkie with a string of arts and culture leadership in my pedigree: I am the founding publisher, editor and reporter of the South Street Star, the first arts and culture weekly newspaper to cover the hot and happenin’ SoHo scene in my hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, where I also founded the Club Bay-Root, an original act nightclub, edited the first ‘What’s Happening’ art and culture listings pages for New York newspaper, the Aquarian Weekly, and founded the first women’s poetry festival while fronting my own poetry troupe, the Star Bards (we had a fan following well before poetry had ‘slams’!). Later, as the chair of the public policy committee for the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce in Minnesota, I founded the first ever business task force to study the impact of the creative class on our city.
I’ve lived in Maastricht for the past five years and have been concerned with the strength of the city’s bid for European Capital of Culture city in 2018. Ah, but then a friend took me to a PechaKucha night and Maastricht and its surrounding “Euroregio” area shone as a wholly new sphere in my celestial imagination.
It’s not that Maastricht invented this night. Far from it. PechaKucha Night was born in Japan 2003 as a place for designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. Pecha Kucha, Japanese for the sound of conversation, is a fast paced, entertaining and informative format now running in over 211 cities world wide, allowing each presenter 20 images at 20 seconds each (totaling 6 minutes and 40 seconds) to present original thought, ideas, concepts, and the like. Some presenters are literally ‘pitching’ their wares (rather than finding a gallery or the like to showcase them) while others intend to shock, stimulate or entertain. No matter the goal, the design and pace of this evening truly arouses passion.
The hosts, of Pecha Kucha Maastricht: Pierre Buijs, Veldhoen+Company, Martijn Kagenaar, Zuiderlicht, and Jean-Paul Toonen, T36 Media, have put their individual spin on this international event by filming and streaming the video on their own website. The presence of a multi-media crew adds a dash of panache and credibility to the event. With the brass ring of capturing the honor of hosting Europe’s Capital Culture in mind, Pecha Kucha Maastricht features the artists, designers, performers, thinkers and tinkers who defy the city’s more staid image. For me, it revealed an intriguing sub-cultural literati from the too often unseen Maastricht cultural scene. Bravo!
To learn more about the Speakers from June 20th simply click onto their website . My personal favorites from June 20th were the soft spoken but deeply sincere Jeroen Vinken, Art upon Fabrics, Lonneke ten Hooven, Food Seduction, a culinary poet, and space cadet, William Willems, whose Flower Bombing stole the show. See for yourself why Maastricht may indeed come up roses for its cultural quest.
Europe Cultural Capital : Will Maastricht make the cut?
Cork, Ireland 2005 European Cultural Capital
We visited Cork during its reign as ECC.
Street Painting, Cork 2005
Exciting times here in Maastricht. The city is vying for the title of European Cultural Capital. The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a period of one calendar year during which it is given a chance to showcase its cultural life and cultural development. A number of European cities have used the City of Culture year to transform their cultural base and, in doing so, the way in which they are viewed internationally.
This week the City of Maastricht along with a few prominent cultural and academic institutions are hosting a two-day open conference/brainstorming session in order to strengthen their strategy and bid. The event is being held at the soon-to-be former cement plant, ENCI, part of which already has been transformed into Maastricht's newest performing and fine arts space.
Schaefer Communications is exploring a few project options connected with this event.
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