Writing

Sarah Waddington doesn’t stop. She’s done a huge amount for the PR industry. Perhaps her greatest contribution is the FuturePRoof series. It’s forward looking and practical. You can’t say that about most of the words published about PR each year, and there is no shortage of writing about PR. Sarah was kind enough to share copy of the latest edition with me before publication.

Edition four seeks to celebrate ethnic minority talent. There is a lot of writing, across a number of industries doing that this year. That’s a good thing. Spurred by horrific events, momentum has built behind changing the status quo. Now is the time to capitalise on it.

The collection is dedicated to Elizabeth Bananuka, another unstoppable force driving PR towards equality, and her Blueprint programme. Elizabeth’s tweets sometimes make for uncomfortable reading. This is a good thing. In a similar vein, the first four contributions to this new edition of FuturePRoof make for uncomfortable reading. This is also good.

They ask fundamental questions about the difference between the PR industry’s proclamations about diversity and its lack of accomplishment. About the different between words and deeds. About accepting that, indeed all of us, are racist in some respect.

Deeper in, the subject matter brings strong insight on targeting, broadcast, public affairs and social media.

Alicia Solanki’s chapter on targeting based on culture and behaviour stood out. It goes beyond segmentation to something deeper. Something we all intuitively understand, but she brings process and clarity to it, citing P&G’s ‘smart audience work.’ It’s fair to say where  the behemoths of FMCG go, we all follow.

Another highlight for me was the contribution from Dr Joanna Abeyie MBE. Looking at how we attract, retain and nurture diverse talent. It looks at long term planning, progression and really opening up and listening. For me, and I imagine many others, the events of this year have thrown out a lot of difficult management challenges. I really valued the reminder to get back to long term thinking and building resilience by planning, not reacting.

I’ll not turn this into a chapter by chapter list, but before closing I’d like to get back to being uncomfortable.

PR people, with our obsession with storytelling and framing, instinctively put everything in a positive light. Publicly at least, difficult conversations are skirted around. Sometimes that’s a good thing. It’s avoids confrontation. Right now, it’s not a good thing. We need to have uncomfortable conversations.

Learn more about #FuturePRoof 4 here.

Is mindfulness cultural appropriation? 
Taking ancient wisdom,
Gentrifying, then westernising it.
 
What about yoga pants? 
Cladding age old poses,
In a smooth lycra skin.
 
And Swing Low Sweet Chariot?
Transported from cotton plantations,
Chanted atop a fallow cabbage patch.
 
Trendy Polynesian tattoos?
Tracing generations of iconography,
So the hench, can ask, “Do you even lift, bro?”
 
Or what of Disney?
Fencing free moving folk lore,
In a theme park of intellectual property.
 
Christmas! Why leave out Christmas?
Baptising Saturnalia,
So pagans imbibed the Word.
 
And why leave out the Indian flag?
Using Ashoka's over-looked Chakra,
To spin a secular democracy.

I firmly believe companies should do good. I believe it’s the right thing to do. I also think it’s commercially beneficial in the long run. However, these are merely beliefs. I have no evidence.

I’ve read about (and occasionally leafed through) studies that show companies who score better on ESG metrics outperform their peers. I’ve done the same for studies that show more diverse companies outperform the market. This correlation is heart-warming, but it’s not evidence in the strictest sense.

To gather evidence about companies that do good being better than companies that don’t is no easy task. There are too many variables to control for and too many subjective opinions about “good” and “better”. It would require making a lot of assumptions.

It is too broad a subject for a single article. However, we can begin our journey by asking some fundamental questions.

What’s the half-life of a good deed?

Does a company doing something nice for you leave you more loyal to them? For how long does that loyalty last?

What’s the half-life of a bad deed?

Does a company screwing you over make you less likely to use them in the future? For how long does this animosity last?

Which half-life is longer? Good or bad?

What’s the half-life of a generally good deed?

If you haven’t personally benefitted from a company’s good actions, but have heard about them, are you better disposed towards that company? For how long?

What’s the half-life of a generally bad deed?

If you haven’t personally lost out from a company’s poor actions, but have heard about them, are you less disposed towards using that company’s goods or services? For how long?

Does availability affect the half-life?

If it is everywhere and convenient, do you get over the bad deed more quickly? Does the good deed last longer?

Does frequency affect the half-life?

If you use a good or service all the time, does a deed have a more or less material impact? If you rarely need the good or service, what’s the effect?

Does repetition affect the half-life?

If a deed is repeated, does it lead to any deeper level of meaning and lengthen the half-life? If a deed isn’t repeated but tales of it are, what’s the impact?

Does price affect the half-life?

If something’s cheap, do you ignore the misdemeanour? If it’s dear, are you willing to pay a premium for good deeds?

These questions obviously probe around ideas of trust, reputation, brand and purpose. They also come from an unapologetically commercial angle. I share them because I’ve been thinking about them a fair bit and I don’t know the answers.

My belief is that bad deeds have greater impact than good ones. That personal experience is more meaningful than broad gestures. That the half-life of a good deed is very short indeed. And, regardless of all that, companies should do good because it is the right thing to do. There need be no greater justification.

We’re a few weeks into the Coronavirus outbreak in the UK and as things begin to settle slightly, I’ve begun thinking about how I’ve handled managing a team during the crisis, what I’ve learned and what I’d do differently.

Adrenaline

The world went crazy. Work turned upside down. People were stockpiling bog roll. A frenetic energy seemed to build within us. Where does it go? How do you channel it?

If you’re spending eight or so hours a day working, what do you do with that nervous energy? What if you’re not busy? Worse, what if you’re at home and not busy but in every meeting and message and email you constantly hear from people about how manically they are? How does that make you feel?

From my own personal experience, the first two weeks were absolutely manic. I mean long hours, short notice, fast turnaround busy. Then the pace slackened a little for about four days. Then it ramped up again. Quickly.  The frenetic energy, however, never went away.

These peaks and troughs of workload, along with the restlessness can lead to emotionally challenging days. Big things are happening and you’re part of it and you feel like you’re contributing. Perfect. But when you’re not called upon, those big things continue and you’re not contributing and you can feel shut out. It’s difficult on a personal level, and it’s even harder in terms of people management.

Personally, I was slow to cotton on to the issue until a conversation with a friend really unlocked it for me. Without that conversation, I’m not confident that I’d have picked up on it even now.

From a management perspective, I’ve found framing the issue as one of importance versus urgency has helped. That everyone’s role is important, but the urgency with which that work needs to be delivered moves around as the crisis unfolds. Different people and different teams are in the thick of it at different times, but at all times the work is important and valued. I’ve kept reiterating this message.

Prioritisation

One of the core skills of management is prioritisation. What’s urgent, what’s important, and what’s nice to have? These things should be pretty easy to identify. In a crisis situation, where things are changing quickly and there’s little reliable information, it can be harder. But I think the real issue is that urgent list can become long very quickly.

In recent weeks, I’ve discovered that real progress is only made if you’re able to clear the urgent list and knock some things off the important list. This is hard. It might mean long hours for a period. It also probably requires a lot of delegation. And, more productively, a hard look at what is genuinely urgent and genuinely important. This latter point will require a fair bit of upwards management.

There’s also an element of bravery involved. Many things will be urgent and, if you had the resource, you’d do them, but you don’t. So make the call that they’re not going to happen. This is important. It prevents burn out, both personal and team. It also protects quality of output; tired, stretched teams do not produce good work. Prioritising isn’t just about the order of things, it’s about saying, “No.”

It’s important to remember here that prioritising things isn’t productive or an outcome in itself. It’s a skill to aid productivity. So if you’re wondering whether or not you’re prioritising things well at the moment, ask yourself if you feel like you’re making progress.

Resilience

Are you coping? And I don’t mean, “Is the work getting done?”

Too often resilience is synonymous with toughness or persistence, but this is unnecessarily macho. If you’re resilient, you can take the knocks because you and your set up are able to recognise and adjust to the setbacks and the pressure.

That means recognising the signs of fatigue and stopping. It means switching off and not thinking about work. Resilience is about keeping yourself productive over the long run. It means knowing there’s a limit to the late-nighters and the challenges you can set as ‘growth opportunities’. It doesn’t mean shielding your team from a heavy workload by doing it yourself, or delegating so much work that your team breaks.

Personally, after the first three weeks, I recognised that I was running on empty and took three days off. I’ve encouraged my team to take time off, even at short notice. These are challenging times. People come first. Work comes second.

Breaking through the screen

It’s hard to sense the tension in the Zoom. It’s even harder to sense the tension outside the Zoom. How do you manage people if you don’t know how they feel? Well, part of that is down whether you were managing people well before the crisis. Regardless, it’s important to watch out for how your team are doing by keeping in touch more often than usual.

I’ve also taken to giving advice when it’s not been sought. This might be frustrating at times, and I try to not go overboard, but I think the messages of ‘look after yourself’ and ‘how are you feeling?’ and ‘make sure you’re switching off’ cannot be repeated too often at present.

I’d love to hear more views on this. How are you managing your team? What have you learned? What’s worked? What hasn’t? Equally, how have you been managed during the crisis? What’s grated? What’s helped. Give me a shout over on twitter @kchadda.