Time to Step Up
21st May 2006 by Eric Bergman, ABC, APR
I read with interest the brief overview of the IABC Research Foundation’s latest report, Communicators Divided Over Role as Ethics Counsel to Management.
It seems that most of the 1,800 communication professionals who responded to the study’s online survey believe that ethical considerations are a vital part of the executive decision-making process, but we’re divided on whether we should act as the principal ethical conscience in an organization.
I must admit that my worldview rests on the side that believes “ethics and corporate reputation concerns go hand-in-hand.” Any public relations practitioner who has asked decision-makers something like “how would you like to see the following headline in tomorrow’s newspaper?” or “would we be able to answer questions from our employees on this issue?” is de facto acting as an organization’s conscience.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Patricia Parsons, APR, who teaches ethics to public relations students at Mount Saint Vincent University, and is author of a book entitled Ethics in Public Relations: A Guide to Best Practice.
During our interview, she outlined five principles that she believes lie at core of ethical behavior. The first two are “to do no harm” and “find the opportunity to do some good.”
Allowing the role of organizational conscience to “fall under the legal or compliance functions” (as the study says many practitioners are willing to see happen), will do harm. It will reduce our influence to the task of developing key messages to explain the decisions of others, which is a role to which the IABC study shows most of us would prefer not to be relegated. But aside from reducing our influence at the boardroom table, how many times have we seen organizations with one foot firmly planted on solid legal ground, only to have the other skating on thin moral ice?
We all have. In fact, in a recent post to the IABC Cafe, contributor Tom Keefe talks about how a legal position ultimately had a negative impact on an organization’s reputation.
By strengthening our role as the angel on the organizational shoulder, we have “the opportunity to do good.” Ethical dilemmas arise, quite frankly, when an individual or organization believes that others will find out about its actions and ultimately disapprove of them.
There are times when an organization needs to come clean and take responsibility for its actions, regardless of the legal ramifications. Management groups need to have this alternative clearly explained if they hope to enhance decision-making (assuming that the organization believes effective decisions are based on the best available range of information), and who is better positioned to do that than us?
We are well positioned, but we may not be prepared. The IABC Research Foundation study points out that less than 30 per cent of us have any education or training in ethics. At the other end of the scale, less than 30 per cent have achieved “many lectures or readings” on ethics, have “taken an entire course on ethics,” or “attended more than one course” on ethics.
If we’re uncomfortable with the role of organizational conscience because we don’t have the training, it’s time we stepped up to get it.
We should purchase The Business of Truth: A Guide to Ethical Communication from the IABC Knowledge Centre. We should pick up a copy of Patricia Parsons’ book. Or we should take a course in ethics.
Should we play this role? How qualified do you feel in providing such advice?
As always, please feel free to express yourself.
May 24th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Interesting study, indeed, and the data help advance the discussion and debate about the role communicators should play when it comes to ethics counseling.
I’m teaching an introductory PR course at Virginia Commonwealth University. It’s a 300-level class and is the first course mass comm students have in the PR track. Today’s presentation was on ethics and professionalism. I shared the IABC press releases about this research and asked the students to discuss their views on the subject. Most students agreed that communicators should play a prominent role in ethics counseling, but they also believe that legal counsel needs to be involved. In other words, they envisioned a shared responsibility for ethics counseling between communicators and attorneys.
(Did that suggestion send chills up everyone’s spines?)
May 24th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
It send a chill up mine. But they’re young and will hopefully soon see the error of their ways.
What’s legally right may very well be morally wrong, and vice-versa.
Thanks for contributing, Robert.
May 25th, 2006 at 5:15 am
To tell the truth, I worry at times that public relations professionals ARE playing a role as ethics counsellors. This concern is based on the knowledge that most practitioners today have not even studied ethics and have little real background for giving such advice. This seriously compromises their credibility in this role.
Last year I completed a survey of ethics education in PR programs in Canada and discovered that whereas most people who actually study PR are exposed to a modicum of ethics that is imbedded in more general courses, the vast majority are never required to take a stand-alone course where they have the chance to really learn something. My literature-based research on PR education in the US reveals a similar situation (perhaps even worse since most PR students are “majors” within other areas such as mass comm, journalism or business rather than taking something like our own Bachelor of Public Relations degree).
What we should really be asking then, is not should PR be taking on a counselling role, but do public relations practitioners have the knowledge and understanding to do so? Indeed, this lack of comfort with the issue of making ethical decisiona and giving advice might be at the heart of the responses from communicators who believe that it is not their role. Moreover, the issue of ethics and the law, while related, actually require two different sets of skill and knowledge in my view. Students who believe in the shared role clearly haven’t been adequately socialized into our field! When students complete my ethics course, they are clear on what role lawyers ought to play — a legal one.
May 25th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Eric,
You wrote a great post and raise some real questions. When I read the summary of the IABC Research Foundation’s ethics report, I was ambivalent. Here’s why.
I absolutely agree that a communication professional should tap his or her “ethical conscience” in the course of work. I absolutely disagree that a communication professional should be the primary conscience of an organization, because a “conscience” isn’t a skill like accounting, welding or writing. Every member of an organization has a conscience, and should be held responsible for responding appropriately to it.
As communication becomes more transparent and fluid in organizations due to social media, I believe that the “primary conscience” of an organization will rise from the collective statements of its management and staff.
May 25th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
I fall on the opposite side from Tom. I don’t think communicators can confine ethics to their own personal approach to work. Ethical lapses that become public affect an organization’s reputation. Too much reputational damage has economic consequences. Thus, I believe communicators have an obligation to serve as something of a watchdog based on their knowledge of how audiences will react to news of ethical missteps. It’s all about audience perceptions and how they impact on the business. That’s not the same as some employee in the engineering department letting his or her conscience be his or her guide. While communicators should do that, too, we also have to recognize that it’s the communicators who will get the calls from the media when the ethics violations occur.
Given that, some organizations are creating positions for ethics officers.
May 25th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Tom/Shel,
Good comments all.
Tom, I totally agree that everyone should be responsible. I also believe that we are well positioned, as business communicators, to facilitate such discussions within and throughout organizations.
And I agree with Shel. We help bring that collective conscience to the outside world.
Thanks for your thoughts.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:18 am
I don’t think we are on opposite sides of this.
I agree with the point that a communicator can and should help bring the collective conscience to the company’s audiences (I would include both internal and external audiences.) I love Eric’s observation that we are well-positioned to facilitate those discussions. Shel, I could see how we might see a potential ethical lapse and, in a “watchdog” role, begin to facilitate a discussion on how to act ethically.
But I wouldn’t want to work for a company where I constantly felt that I was the only person who thought to consider ethical behavior as part of the decision-making process.
Shel, in a recent “For Immediate Release” podcast, you talked about joining a company early in your career after working as a print journalist. You said that you thought that you needed to serve in that corporate watchdog role–until your PR boss “corrected” you (my quotes, because I don’t have the exact words you used). He didn’t think that the watchdog role was part of the job description.
I maintain that a communicator who sets himself or herself up as the ethical watchdog in a corporation–instead of helping to facilitate a culture of positive ethical behavior–is setting himself or herself up for misery.
I mean a different kind of misery than getting the media calls. Sure, we handle the media calls, but then the legal department is contacted and has to handle the legal fallout, the Investor Relations Department is contacted and has to handle the financial fallout, the executives are contacted and have to address the reputational impact, and every employee that hears about it has to relook at his/her employer from an engagement perspective. This all would be the result of an ethical lapse that should have been apparent to more than a single communicator.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Tom,
I think we’re all on a similar song sheet, and I think we can bridge the gap by thinking of this role less as a “watchdog” and more as an “angel on the shoulder.”
We don’t have any real power in this role, other than to facilitate the discussion of an organization’s values and remind decision-makers on what those values are (and/or have been in the past) as they sort through the information they need to make informed decisions in the best interests of the organization’s long-term sustainability.
And I don’t believe this role can be conducted in isolation. It must be collaborative.
In fact, I see three distinct skills that could be applied to a job description for a “senior” communicator (i.e. anyone older and greyer than me) in this role: a strong understanding of how to apply ethical decision-making models to enable an organization to build long-term, sustainable relationships with publics and stakeholders; strong facilitation skills to encourage others to contribute ideas and, most importantly, listen to the contributions of others; and a team player willing to work in a collaborative environment.