There are times when the excellence comes in the moving forward component – in joining the conversation, in engaging with stakeholders, in reaching out and opening the door for discussion. Over the years, I have seen several client organizations get stuck – and I mean stuck – in rewriting speeches, articles or entire websites over and over again because they weren’t perfect. I have seen communications teams fracture over this type of approach. And it doesn’t mean the work wasn’t good or that it wouldn’t have been effective.

This type of dysfunction is more about the organization than about the work. Sometimes it’s a weird form of passive aggressive behavior. Other times it’s because someone (or several people) are paralyzed by the fear of moving forward and making a mistake. I can tell you that in many situations, the mistake is in doing nothing.

It is easy to hide behind perfection, the lawyers, or to create a committee that can’t agree and so nothing moves forward. When that happens, it isn’t about the communications strategy or initiatives, it is a much bigger issue that needs to be addressed. It’s about leadership and teamwork.

Check out the great piece on Ragan.com entitled: 6 lame excuses for not communicating for more on this topic.

How does your organization behave? Are you good enough?

I mentioned in Monday’s blog post that I would focus on some of the tools we, at AHA, provide to clients and why they are of value. I think before I do that, I should take a step back and define what good public relations is – to us. (I don’t want this blog post to be too long, so next Wednesday I will focus on the specific tactics. Although, I have to warn you, I got a bit carried away – today’s post is a little long!)

Good public relations is working in partnership with clients. Even when it is challenging, we tell them what they need to hear – rather than just take orders and deliver what they want us to. We identify what they need (which isn’t always the same) and we approach what we do with optimistic realism. Timelines, deadlines, client resources and budgets also have to be taken into consideration.

Good PR is about building positive long-term relationships. We can build excitement about the launch of a new product, service or initiative; but we always advise our clients that – whether it’s us or in-house moving forward – the launch is just the beginning. You need to consistently provide relevant, informative, engaging and authentic communication to media, bloggers and all stakeholder groups.

Good PR embraces the critics. The online world provides an incredibly valuable focus group that organizations can tap into on a regular basis. The fact is, some organizations will always be criticized, no matter what they do. The key is to recognize the value of what you can gain from listening and, when appropriate, responding to the criticism.

Good PR blends both reactive and active. Proactively reaching out to stakeholders and responding quickly to opportunities and potential issues are both important in public relations.

Good PR is measurable. Understanding the objectives of a campaign, project or initiative is important. Defining what you want to achieve (in an optimistically realistic way) is crucial to measurement. There are many tools and technologies that can assist in measurement. We believe that measuring should be an ongoing approach throughout a campaign – not just at the end – so adjustments can be made as necessary.

Good PR is credible and balanced. This is a point that is often the most difficult for some senior executives to understand. We are experiencing a shift in how consumers expect organizations to communicate. They don’t want challenges or issues to be fluffed over or – worse – hidden or denied. Truth, transparency and authenticity are crucial to building long-term relationships. This is an area that is sensitive and needs to be strategically managed. Having an open and honest discussion with your public relations team about this approach can provide huge value to your organization.

Good PR builds your brand; it is at the heart of reputation management. An organization’s reputation is built day by day, action by action; and public relations helps to share the success, achievements and community interactions of your organization. Sharing what your organization does well and how you participate in your communities is of huge importance. Should an issue or a crisis happen, you have already built credibility and trust with your stakeholders.

Good PR is only as good as your service, product or initiative, and how clients or customers are dealt with comes into this. Good PR can create interest, engage people and raise the profile of your organization, but then it’s up to the people to deliver on the brand promise. Good PR can’t fix a bad company – and it shouldn’t.

And, of course, good PR tells the story of your organization. There are so many incredible stories that are begging to be told; it’s one of the things that inspires us at AHA. Telling stories in different formats for different audiences is at the core of good public relations. People love a good story. They want to cheer for an underdog and see someone break down barriers and succeed. They want to know how something came about and why it matters. They want to know about the “human” side of an organization – about the people, the passion and the community. A good story that is well told and delivered to the right people, using the right medium, provides huge return-on-investment.

What do you think? What do you consider good PR?

Unfortunately that neglect has come back to create internal issues. There are human resource challenges, inefficiencies between departments and some information circulating is just plain wrong – and it is creating concern and anxiety among employees. In the past, this organization had not considered communication a priority. That has changed. There is a new Chief Operating Officer (COO) who is committed to creating open, two-way communication opportunities. He is also ready to work with staff to identify and improve the blocks to communication.

In beginning to create a strategic plan for internal communications, we quickly realized that it is going to take more than an inspiring speech and a promise to respond from the new COO. Credibility and trust need to be rebuilt and the employees are a little skeptical about whether honest, open and two-way communication will become their day-to-day reality. This is going to take a culture change and for that to happen, the shift has to come from a range of areas within the organization. We’re still working this through and will blog more about the innovative ways we’re working with this company to move forward in this area.

For this post, we’re focused on the importance of an organization to quickly and thoughtfully respond to an issue. One of the challenges that most organizations now face is that it is crucial to respond quickly when a potential issue, challenge or opportunity comes up. Gone are the days when you had days or weeks to think about things, to develop the right messaging and positioning. Our world is now fast paced. There is an expectation of a quick response for both internal and external stakeholders. At best, you have 24 hours – and I have to admit, even that seems like a long, drawn-out response time to me. Journalists update their online articles and post new articles throughout the day and night. There is no more news cycle tied to print production and broadcast times. Many people connect with their BlackBerry or iPhone and very few people don’t check their inbox, Facebook, Twitter or other social networking accounts on a daily basis.

Each organization is different, but there seems to be a gap when it comes to providing information to stakeholders in a timely fashion. Approval processes are outdated and cumbersome. Creating a streamlined process is crucial.

Could your organization turn around a response within 24 hours? Within 12 hours? How about eight hours or in four? If it was urgent and a crisis hit, could you have a written document, a video or other form of communication developed, approved and distributed in an hour? These are important questions to ask yourself and your colleagues.

Blogs, like this one, have a little bit of leeway because it is written in a more conversational manner. (It would still bother me if there was a typo or other error in this blog.) Anything that is shared internally or externally should be reviewed. Here at our Vancouver PR agency, we have an editing and proofing process that we strictly follow. The input of the crew is important and each person is encouraged to question not just the information presented, but the style, tone and the word structure and grammar. It isn’t always easy or comfortable to do this, but it is important.

I recently came across a great piece on Ragan.com that focuses on how to identify and eliminate redundancy from your writing. It’s worth a read.

Getting copy, videos, images, etc. through the approval process is a challenge that every communicator I know has faced. It’s not always easy to get through the approval process, whether you are in-house, at an agency or a freelancer. Quite often, it isn’t about how good the copy is, it’s about the culture of the organization and, at the core of it, about the person who has the power to approve.

Quite often, people don’t understand what the review process is supposed to achieve. From a communicator’s perspective, it’s usually about ensuring that the piece is accurate and authentic. We write for a living and have checks and balances in place (thank goodness for copyeditors and proofreaders!) to make sure the piece is professional, easy to read and clear.

For others, writing is a personal thing and, unfortunately, ego can come into play. Many people like to put their “stamp” on content. Depending on how many people are on the review list, it can take days or even weeks to get a short piece approved. Wading through suggestions, revisions and input can be time consuming. To be honest, quite often the revisions don’t make the piece better because the person reviewing is seeing the piece from their own perspective and potentially not understanding the objectives of the piece overall.

I came across a great piece on Ragan.com recently that outlines some tips on how to better manage the approval process. I have to say, there is some valuable information here.

Just a quick note on blogging…I have read plenty that says blogging is dead. I don’t think blogging has hit its prime yet. I think it goes back to understanding your objectives. Not every CEO should blog and I don’t necessarily think that every organization should have a blog. However, there are some great opportunities to use this tool to connect with your stakeholders.

Often when we speak with clients, we see that they have fallen into the trap of thinking that they need to use a blog in the most traditional way—external, writing everyday without fail. Depending on the objectives, you might want to set up a time-limited blog that deals with a specific topic or topics. You could also develop an ongoing blog with a range of guest bloggers that augment the lead blogger. Or you could have an internal facing blog that connects your leadership team with staff.

A blog doesn’t always have to be about serious information. It does, however, need to be taken seriously. At AHA, when we work with clients to develop blogs or other content for Twitter, Facebook, online newsletters, etc., we create an editorial calendar that outlines the upcoming topics for the next three to four months. It is important to develop good content or else the initiative is bound to fail. What you write needs to engage the readers. It needs to be relevant to the readers. It needs to be informative. It needs to compel your readers to come back because you have something valuable to say and they have the opportunity to participate in a real conversation. Creating a successful blog isn’t easy, but it is of great value.

While technology has provided us with the ability to reach out and connect, it’s always important to realize that just because you “can” doesn’t mean you “should.” When we take on a project with the objective of connecting or re-connecting with stakeholders, whether internal or external, it is important to get back to the basics of strategic communication and understand the audience. There has to be research and analysis done before we can strategically choose how to reach out. I think that one of the keys to using online media successfully is that you need to fully understand how the community you want to open the conversation with receives and puts out information. More and more, we are finding that people are online—on Facebook, reading blogs, on Twitter—but you do need to understand their comfort with technology and their habits.

PR Newswire recently put out an interesting questionnaire called Social Computing Online Readiness Evaluation. It is focused on enterprise social software, but some of the questions easily translate to understanding whether your audience is ready—even anxious—to begin the conversation online. You have to provide your email address and phone number, but in my experience, PR Newswire doesn’t drive you crazy with spam-like emails or unwanted phone calls, so it is worth logging in to read.

Some of the questions that it asks would be logical to ask when thinking about adding a social media component to your communications plan. This questionnaire happens to use the word “employees” – substitute that with member, stakeholder, or student and you can see the potential for context about whether social media might work for you. Some questions include:

• What percentage of your employees are millennials (under 33)? This is a demographic that is quite savvy online. However, don’t think that those of us older than 33 aren’t. You would be surprised at how many people in your organization are connected and are moving further and further into online communication.

• How difficult is it for your employees to cross divisional, hierarchical, and/or geographic boundaries? We find that even in organizations where people are all under the same roof, there are challenges – scatter them across the city, the province, the country or the world and the challenge grows.

• How difficult is it to deliver crisis communications and/or other important organizational information to the right employees at the right time? This is a huge issue for many organizations and one of the biggest challenges is that many don’t plan ahead. This is something that needs to be in place BEFORE something happens.

• How easy is it for your employees to discover internal subject matter experts? This is a very interesting question. How do you share knowledge and expertise in your organization? How much time is spent researching information that is easily available through a colleague or re-inventing the wheel? An organization can become more cost-effective and efficient when colleagues and other stakeholders become a part of a community and share information about who has expertise in certain areas, what your resources are, where they are, and other collaborative opportunities.

Our role is to provide strategic advice, planning and implementation to clients in both traditional communication and social media. It is questions such as these (and many, many others) at the beginning that help us to define the right roadmap for each client. It’s definitely worth thinking about. If you are considering using social media, what questions should you be asking yourself about how, when and why you communicate with your stakeholders and what would the value be if you added social media to the mix?

The airlines are in trouble – we all know that. Well, maybe not Southwest – who have a great blog and seem to keep their passengers if not insanely happy, at least not screaming in the aisles like most other airlines. Now, United Airlines pilots are using social media tools to air their issues and demand the removal of UAL Chairman, President and CEO Glen Tilton. 

They got the right url glentilton.com  and on this site, there is media coverage, reports and the opinions of the pilots themselves. They want Glen Tilton out and they are telling the public why. 

From what I can see, no one from United Airlines is responding to this website or acknowledging the issues that the pilots are putting forward, at least not publicly. This is one of the challenges of social media, when something like this happens – what do you do?

I have to be clear that I do not know the entire story from both sides. I only know what I have read and seen in the media and what this website tells me. Which, I think is a perspective that United Airlines might be missing. They may have done a great deal to work things out with the pilots, but I don’t know that, as they aren’t telling us anything.

They may be in talks with the pilots right now. For all I know, the board of directors may be asking for Glen Tilton’s resignation as I write this. That’s the problem — no one from inside the organization is letting us know what is going on. 

What if they did? What if they publicly announced that they were going to hold town hall meetings and that they were going to tape them and put them up on their intranet for employees who could not be there in person? What if they reached out to some of the pilots and and set up live panel discussions that were webcast so anyone in the company could watch the senior executive and the pilots have open, respectful and authentic discussions on what can be done to bring the two sides together? None of this would be available to anyone but employees, but what if they told the public that they were doing this … I know I would have a better perception of the people running the company.

From my perspective, United Airlines needs to wake up and smell the coffee (which is one of the few items you are not yet charged for on an airplane). The pilots have gone social media on them, they have opened their problems to the whole world. Shutting their C-Suite doors and pretending it isn’t happening, won’t do them any good.

Think about Saturday Night Live, some of the best comedy minds in the business are focused on being smart and funny for this show and it doesn’t always work. Often, it doesn’t work. How many times have you thought “that’s just not funny” when watching a sketch.

Yet, organizations keep trying to be funny and they seem to have lost perspective about what IS funny and smart and what others (the ones who aren’t in the room when the idea is pitched) will think about the video. Let us know what you think. Check out AOL’s video with Alec Baldwin. Or have a look at the recent internal video done by Microsoft …we bet the “real” Boss isn’t too happy about this ….

Not sure what stakeholder reaction was to these videos. We’d be interested to hear.