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| ©2008
Forrest W. Anderson |
http://forrestwanderson.blogspot.com/
The Institute for
Public Relations/
The Lean
Communicator/
Market Development
Group
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I was working in a public relations
agency, and I had an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
I needed to develop strategy for communications, but in almost all
cases, there was no information on which to base the strategies. As an
MBA, this was intolerable. So I started looking for ways to get good
information on which to base strategic communications recommendations.
This led me to positions in research and account planning in PR
agencies.
While I was SVP, director, research and
account planning, at GolinHarris International, CEOs of a number of
companies asked us to develop sets of messages that would appeal to
multiple stakeholders but not conflict with each other.
Because I had information-based ways to develop persuasive messages,
these projects came to me. I enjoyed working on these
projects more than any others, because they are an area where
communications blends with management. Developing messages
that appeal to multiple stakeholders while not conflicting with each
other seemed to me to be what CEOs had to do through actions.
As managers, they needed to pull together different groups of people –
investors, employees, customers, communities – with competing goals and
through the enterprise the CEO managed create a situation in which
everyone would gain.
I also found that sometimes management did
not have an acceptable message (or policy) for all stakeholder groups,
and in those cases, it became necessary for me to let management know
that the organization was not aligned with stakeholders and needed to
either change itself or choose different stakeholders.
This is a point where communications
consulting becomes management consulting, and today I find it as
fascinating as I did then.
The relationship work came as a result of
being exposed to the ideas of Pat Jackson, University of Maryland
Professor Jim Grunig and others who feel the business of public
relations is managing relationships. When Jim Grunig and
Linda Hon published a paper that provided a technique for measuring the
strength of relationships across six factors, I was anxious to apply
it. Having done work in this area now, I know we can assess the
strength of relationships and manage them for the better.
This, too, is something senior managers are called on daily to do.
I have worked in communications for more
than 30 years and have held senior positions in communications research
and account planning for nearly 20 years at organizations including
GolinHarris International, Burson-Marsteller, Applied Communications
and Text 100.
I have an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate
School of Management in marketing and management policy, and I have
been designing and managing projects to optimize multiple stakeholder
messaging and to enhance relationships for more than 15
years.
Clients for which I have done this kind of
work include: Bank of America; Boy Scouts of America; Dairy
Management, Inc.; Disney Imagineering; IBM; Michelin, North America;
Stanford Athletics; United States Ski and Snowboard Association; and
Weyerhaeuser.
I am a founding member of the Institute for
Public Relations Commission on PR Measurement and Evaluation and have
written and contributed to a number of papers on this topic.
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