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• managers of their immediate department:
• managers of dotted line relationships with other public relations people throughout the company, including subsidiaries around the world;
• marketing director of the corporate brand:
• public relations practitioners in their own right:
• coordinators of all the intangible elements that make up a company's
ethos under direction of the chairman:
• overseeing the hiring of and the relationship with outside consultancics:
• acting as sounding boards;
• making sure internal and external communications arc consistent in conjunction with personnel/human resources managcrs.
Mike Beard. director of corporate communications at the construction to property group Taylor Woodrow. believed that one of the main differences between the communications role and other senior ones in an organization was that
'everyone is an expert in our field. Everyone has a basic belief that they have the expertise. Take two things, finance. first. How many people can really read a balance sheet or understand complex financial instruments') So the finance director and his team have something that others don't really understand. And there are computers, When the computer services director is presenting to the board, after he has got beyond his first megabyte, people feel that because they don't really understand, they had better be a bit cautious before challenging it. But, of course, everybody reads the newspapers so is an expert on them, everybody watches TV and is an expert on it and on advertising, Everyone has to write memos and letters so are experts on writing. With a lot of things we do, everyone feels they are experts. So you get far more of a challenge, Interestingly, you don't usually get it from the chairman or chief executive, but from a little bit further down the organization. '
Diplomacy and the ability to get on with people are obviously crucial qualities. As Werner Baier, Henkel's director of corporate communications, pointed out, 'It can be very tough on a product manager who has a good idea and there is some guy from head office saying it may not be such a good idea.' Or, as Beard noted wryly, 'One of the oldest lies in the business is "I am from head office and I'm here to help you".'
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the public relations framework
I It is difficult to generalize, but a 'typical' structure might encompass the
~i following:
(1) At the top sits the head of public relations, or director of corporate
,: communications, reporting directly to the chairman/chief executive
officer.
(2) Under him/her can be a department of some substance which covers a wide range of topics, or one which is quite lean and handles only essentials. This particularly characterizes companies that have a strongly centralized headquarters in a different country and/or those using public relations to spearhead their way into a new market.
(3) Product/brand publicity/public relations is pushed down to the operating companies. The public relations people there probably report to the marketing director, although there is a strong dot led line to the centre.
(4) There might also be a head of public affairs/relations in a division, as at Guinncss, depending on how autonomously the operating companies are.
The more senior position of the head of communications, and I he increased association with other senior executives as equals, means there is more emphasis on improving the communications skills of all rnanagc ment. At the same time more resources are being put into public n.:l" tions training for all the public relations staff. As Peter Walker, chairman and chief executive of consultancy Pielle pointed out,
'The drive for better training is from these senior people because they are under pressure to have effective and efficient departments. There also has to be a succession built into the organization, I r you don't have a successor at that level it is an admission of failure.'
More management courses - at Harvard Business School, flH example - incorporate public relations/communications as H topic, 10 sil alongside the more traditional areas of finance, market ing lind resources, while it is not uncommon today in large companies for planners to rotate people through public relations departments. Allolli,', role the centre can play, apart from educating other communications skills, is to make sure that senior managers III silliNldlil1 Y companies understand just what sort of communications, in-house, before resorting to using outside consultants.