Breakout 3A: PR is Not Always Loved by Management: Ten Ways to Earn a Position on the Management Team

By Lauri Gagnon, Quotes vice president, and Amber Bloom, Quotes member

Joe Curley, APR, CPRC, a 35-year PR veteran, past state FPRA president and winner of the 2009 Past President's Award, delivered an applicable and enlightening presentation on how to create a "romance" between PR and Management in his session. Noting that "true PR is about satisfying the annoyed without annoying the satisfied," Curley emphasized PR as personal relationships.

His ten strategies to elevate PR to a valuable contributor to the management team included:

1. Don't wait to be asked
2. Know what keeps the CEO up at night
3. Analyze the big picture, not just the snapshot
4. Get involved in the company's policy making process
5. Lead the function of environmental scanning
6. Serve as the conscience of the organization
7. Develop and present action-oriented "decision making" information
8. Know everything you can about your company's operations
9. Monitor the direct competition and the marketplace
10. Focus all of your PR activities

Curley closed his session with a personal case study. One of his clients, Universal Studios, was on the verge of opening their new attraction, Twister, when disaster struck Central Florida. Forty-one people were killed when tornadoes tore through a local town. Curley and his client were forced to face a difficult decision: should they go ahead with the opening of the natural disaster-themed ride or postpone it? He discussed the ethical dilemmas he faced in making his recommendation to postpone the opening. Even though the company would lose the movie stars for the opening, they decided to suspend it temporarily. The story was picked up by news outlets around the country and Universal Studios secured more publicity than they had anticipated. The end result was a positive image for the company, which saved more than $1 million on the opening of the ride and were left with a clean conscience.