Men or women....... who is responsible?

Female bosses may be a new concept for many men. Few decades ago, women were expected to be housewives. Today women are starting their own businesses or becoming CEOs of multi-million dollar PR agencies.

Many male executives, are not used to working with powerful women, whether they are powerful in terms of their work or powerful in terms of their personality. This could be a reason that men feel threatened and thus may not allow women to rise in the ranks.

Males are not the only ones to blame for the lack of female at the top levels in PR industry. Some women are just not comfortable with power. Thus many a times it is a glass ceiling that is self-created and women would have to push themselves out of this self-imposed ceiling.

A lot of great female businesswomen are present in PR world, but I don’t know how many feel comfortable in their role as a female businesswoman. Maybe, a lot of women work at the hands and permission of the male business environment. Even though women may yield power effectively, women (it is researched by psychologists) are not comfortable with power. This creates an internal conflict which can limit their effectiveness.

And then there are some smart women like Willibanks in business, who have understood this dilemma in the society. She has a largely female staff because she wanted to be surrounded by strong women. As a strong business woman herself with great business acumen she decided to partner with a male, Bill Elam, who is the other half of her strength. According to her, some clients only want to work with male executives, and WilbanksElam is able to cater to each client’s needs.

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Book

Article1

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Join Conversations in Public Relations as we meet Carolyn Tieger, 2005 Washington PR Woman of the Year and Partner and Managing Director with the public relations firm, Porter Novelli.

A little reflection on gender issues.....

The first thought that comes to the mind and all researchers have admitted is that having children is costing women thousands of pounds. Research by the London School of Economics said the "mother gap", the time taken off work to have babies, costs women between £19,000 and £285,000 over a lifetime.

However, the problems do not stop there. Mothers face more subtle difficulties in keeping up with the Mr Joneses.

Then there is a Cinderella complex.

Women are also guilty of undermining themselves. They are less confident in their abilities, less likely to demand pay rises, and less certain that they deserve the highest positions.

As if this is not enough.... women also have to cope with the "old-boy network" that is alive and well in London's gentlemen's clubs and on golf courses up and down the country.

I have a(fantasy) question ????

When will a time come when men who feel threatened by careerist female colleagues will be offered assertiveness training ?

ref:

Blog

BBC

Colette Dowling

Three reasons why women cannot run a PR agency in near future?

Google search women in PR and more than a dozen sites will open. Go to the library and all reputed authors in PR have written about women and how there is a need to boost their self confidence to move in higher positions of PR agency. So we know that there is a problem. There is no fire without a spark.

When I researched a few top agencies of London none of them had a woman leading it.

I will give you 3 reasons why women may not be able to lead a PR agency.

The first reason is that women may possess those abilities and skills which are required for leadership roles in a PR agency. You say women are persuasive, caring, and cooperative, with good communication skills. They are intuitive and spontaneous—perfect qualities to do a technicians role not a leaders role.

Research proves that leadership roles require completely different skills, that you be forceful, independent, logical, resilient and decisive. Lot of women think they have it but they don’t.

The second reason why women may not lead a PR agency and research proves it, is ‘networking.’ Networking arrangement provides invaluable information, visibility and support. Men have the time to socialize more and thus benefit from what we call’ fill in the gaps’ while let’s say drinking at a pub. I am not promoting women going to pubs but the case here is they cannot network as much as men do and I cannot stress enough why contacts are so important in running a PR agency.

The third reason why women may not run a PR agency, is due to occupational stress. Men and women managers often share common stressors, but women in managerial roles are faced with additional pressures, both from work and home/ social environment.. not experienced by male managers.

Book Ref.:

1. Grunig: Women in Public relations. How gender influences practice

2.Davidson & cooper: Shattering the Glass ceiling

3. Wirth: Breaking through the Glass Ceiling

4.Wilcox: Relations strategies and tactics

5. Cutlip: Effective public relations

Ethics and Law

The Public Relations Society of every country has put together a list of ethical guidelines they expect all public relations managers, no matter what business they are in, to follow. Most companies will make some kind of ethical guidelines and put in place the behaviour they expect their employees to follow. These guidelines are put in place to set standards of honesty and goodwill for all public relations representatives to follow.

I think as PR practitioners we must understand a few concepts of ethics. If we fail to address an issue ethically we may get into legal trouble. So let me explain some generally used words in law to define unethical practices.

Defamation is a publication of material that would lead to hatred, ridicule, contempt, or spite. There are two types of defamations: libel and slander

Libel is when you publish something against someone and the person can sue you for libel.

Slander is a spoken word or gesture defamation.

The other concepts we must understand are:

Product Liability it is a legal responsibility of organizations to compensate individuals for injury or damages caused by defects in their products or services.

Malice it is when a company knew about the issues, its harmfulness, and did nothing about it or covered it up.

Privacy Rights is an invasion, appropriation, intrusion, false light issues.

Perrier case study

One example of a business that acted ethically and was rewarded for their honesty was Perrier, who is a company that has been regarded as one of the most well-known companies for producing and selling sparkling mineral water.

When the company found out that traces of Benzene, a harmful chemical that could make any customer sick, in thirteen of their water bottles in the United States, they could have easily played it off as a mishap since it was only thirteen bottles out of the millions they sell each year.

However, Perrier acted ethically and pulled all bottles off the shelves in the United States. They came up with a successful public relations tactic of communicating the concern of Benzene in their water to the public and were completely honest with their customers.

While some of their customers could have gotten really angry for the mistake, most of them accepted Perrier’s apology based on the idea that they were honest and took a “safety-first” approach to their product.

As a result, Perrier was hardly criticized and retained most of their customer base . Because Perrier acted ethically and in the bet interest for their customers, there were no reports of Perrier’s customers getting sick due to their mistake and they are still a successful company.

If they had not acted ethically, the risk of someone getting sick would have been much higher, resulting in more damage to Perrier’s image.

Moral of the story is that ethical behaviour is the choice of an individual.

Who determines ethical behaviour?

According to Josephson Institute ethics are ‘standards of conduct that indicate how one should behave based on moral duties and virtues.’ I agree with Holt that a lot of questions are raised by PR professionals about ethics. What will be called an ethical behaviour? Who determines ethical behaviour- the company where to work, your own morals or the PR code of Ethics? What if they are conflicting?

First let me distinguish morals from ethics. Morals are personal and individual to you. They are often entrenched values and principles that are shaped by your upbringing. Ethics on the other hand is a study of morals. And it develops structured and consistent frameworks to help people make decisions based on open principles.

There are four principles of Potter(not Harry Potter!). One, get your facts and define the situation. Two, Identify your values. Three, Select your principles. Four, select your loyalties- which of the stakeholders will you favour.

I think the tide turns here. When you go through the first three principles and presume you are making a good ethical choice, you are faced with the greatest dilemma of your professional life. Whom to favour?

When you have a family to take care of, a job that you wish to hang on (whatever are the reasons) so who will you favour then? Is this the reason that the scale always tilts towards the employer’s side. Is then the decision taken or advice given ethical?

Politics is like the Film Industry

I went to watch a Hindi film Luck by Chance (I enjoyed the film) and I felt that there is a parallel between films and politicians.

All worlds a stage and we are all actors. The Image Management activity of Public Relation agencies is working overtime.

It will not be a surprise that sometime in future, like for aspiring actors there would be a screen test of politicians. For clearing this screen test all politicians will enroll themselves in Institutes of Politician training (run by PR agencies of course). And only politicians with a certificate will get an opportunity for the screen test (read elections). Thus we the public, no longer will see plain looking politicians.

They will be trained in portraying the correct shade of feelings for the screen (read masses) and once off stage they will be different. Who cares for substance when there will be style!!!

The political addresses to the masses will be called ‘frames’ and after every such delivery the director (PR people)will shout ‘cut’ and congratulate the politician to have given a great shot.

I think this would be the right time to be in the PR industry.... laughing all the way to the bank.

I am loving it!!!!!!!

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

It has been argued that today political parties are quickly abandoning ideologies and now are marketing themselves (with the help of PR agencies of course) according to the needs of the voters.

I think there is no problem in thinking of the voters need but I do have a problem with the word marketing. It is this word that beats the purpose and the politicians become mere vendors, selling something that they do not believe in.

Political parties across the globe have tried to reinvent themselves but the process is so shallow. Labour became New Labour, Conservative became Conservatives (great PR working there!). The reinvention lasts for the elections and post elections they are all the same.

Almost all political parties come to power with the agenda of change (no pun intended) but will later be accused of spin and manipulation as their predecessors were.

George Orwell said it very well that, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Other side of the story.

I think the corporate sector may be a bit worried about the advent of new media.

They are worried (rightly so) about how their business practices are viewed by consumers and activists?

The first reason of this worry could be that the internet has long been a powerful medium for anti-corporate messages. Moreover, material posted on these websites often remains accessible via search engines long after it is first published. A Google search for "Nike", now considered a leader in managing labour conditions in its factories, still brings up a "Boycott Nike" website.

The second reason could be that a blogger has zero accountability, he has no advertisers, infrastructure or cost model to worry about and nobody's going to sue him.

I think new media forces the business towards a new level of transparency, since the online users are quick to uncover "flogging" (fake blogging) and to deride companies for any differences that emerge between their rhetoric and their actions.

The business organizations need PR more than ever in order to constantly gauge reactions of consumers and create a favourable image of the company in the minds of the stakeholders.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e2800f2-6ecd-11db-b5c4-0000779e2340.html?nclick_check=1