November 18, 2024 • 33 mins
Discover the intricate maneuvers corporations perform when navigating social issues featuring Doug Pinkham, president of the Public Affairs Council. What does it take for a company to authentically engage in social movements without falling into the trap of opportunism or greenwashing? Learn how businesses can enhance corporate responsibility and attract top talent by aligning their initiatives with core values, sector specifics, and historical context. With host Peter Woolfolk Doug shares nuanced insights into this complex decision-making process, revealing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to corporate social involvement.
As political landscapes shift, so do public expectations of corporate engagement. This episode sheds light on how companies decide their role in politically sensitive matters like democracy and voting rights while maintaining a delicate balance. With increasing public support for corporate involvement in issues such as the environment, hunger, and discrimination, we discuss the differing expectations from the Republican and Democratic sides. Backed by data from an annual opinion survey, Doug shares the importance of strategic communication in managing these expectations and how companies like Subaru and Nike successfully align their brand identities with social causes.
In an era of heightened scrutiny, the stakes of corporate social engagement are higher than ever. Explore how authenticity and transparency can either make or break a brand's reputation. Doug discusses the pivotal role of communication executives in crisis management and the strategic choice between appearing "evil" or "stupid." Navigating through controversies with grace can enhance trust and public perception. Tune in to understand the growing expectations on corporations to act and how they can leverage research and data from the Public Affairs Council to inform their strategies.
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Episode Transcript
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Announcer (00:03):
Welcome.
This is the Public RelationsReview Podcast, a program to
discuss the many facets ofpublic relations with seasoned
professionals, educators,authors and others.
Now here is your host, peterWoolfolk is your host, peter
(00:29):
Woolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:29):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
Now, this podcast is ranked byApple as among the top 1% of
podcasts worldwide, so let mesay thank you to all of our
guests and listeners for beingthe basis for this ranking and
if you enjoy the podcast, please, we certainly would like to get
a review from you.
Now, in this episode, we'regoing to have a discussion about
(00:51):
whether it is wise orbeneficial that corporations
engage in social movements.
Well, my guest today says yes,it is.
He was elected to the head ofthe Public Affairs Council in
1997.
Under his leadership, theCouncil has expanded its
membership, online services,research on emerging public
(01:11):
affairs trends, conferences andglobal public affairs program.
He has written numerousarticles and books and is a
frequent speaker on publicaffairs, politics,
communications and corporatemanagement.
Now, before joining the council, he was vice president of
communications for the AmericanGas Association.
(01:32):
He is also an accredited memberof the Public Relations Society
of America and he serves on theboard of Institute for Public
Relations.
Now joining me from WashingtonDC which, by the way, happens to
be my hometown is the presidentof the Public Affairs Council,
doug Pinkham.
Doug, welcome to the podcast.
Doug Pinkham (01:48):
Well, it's good to be here.
Peter, it's nice to meet youvirtually.
Peter Woolfolk (01:52):
Well, and thank you so much, and same here.
Look, you know you believe itis important that corporations
and other large organizationsbecome in social issues.
Why
Well a number of reasons.
Social issues.
Why do you believe that this isso important?
Well, a number of reasons.
One is, I mean, ideally, ifyou're going to be a company
with a long run, you know it'sgoing to be around for a long
(02:13):
time.
Obviously, you got to have goodproducts and services at a fair
price, but you also have totreat people well.
You got to have a goodworkforce and I think one of the
real secrets is to create thenot just the impression, but the
reality that you try to operatein the public interest.
It doesn't mean that you'regovernment.
It doesn't mean that you're acharity.
But if you're going to make andsell a product, you're doing it
in a responsible way.
(02:34):
In addition and that's kind ofthe argument for companies just
getting involved in corporateresponsibility in general, what
we have seen is a real trend inthe last 10 years.
In general, what we have seenis a real trend in the last 10
years as companies are findingthere is a real decline in
population in Gen Z.
There just aren't as many youngpeople as there were when I was
(02:54):
younger, as when you were youngwhen, of course, it was very
competitive to get your firstjob, and so the war for talent
is real, and a lot of thepressure in fact, the majority
of the pressure for companies tobe involved in various social
issues is coming from their ownemployees.
The first study we at theCouncil did that made this point
, that proved this point wasback in 2016.
And we since have thenreplicated it several times.
(03:17):
So that's where a lot of theexpectations are coming from not
just the general public, butyour own employees.
So if you want to have a greatworkforce and people motivated
and, once they start, stickaround so they can tell their
friends what a great place theywork, you need to be engaged in
society.
So it's one of those situationswhere there's a number of
(03:39):
reasons to do this.
Having said that, it'sdefinitely not a
one-size-fits-all kind ofpractice to be involved in a
social cause.
It will depend entirely on whatsector you work in, what your
history is, what your trackrecord, what your CEO has said
or done in the past, what yourcompetitors are doing, what the
(03:59):
real needs are.
In other words, you don't wantto choose such a small or
esoteric issue that no one seemsto care about, but you also
don't want to choose such asmall or esoteric issue that no
one seems to care about.
But you also don't want to jumpon board a very popular issue
if there's just zero connectionto your company in either the
things you make and sell or yourvalues or statements or
(04:20):
employee volunteerism.
If you do that, you look likeyou're either greenwashing, if
it's an environmental case whereyou're pretending to be
environmentally beneficial, oryou're just being an opportunist
and just jumping on board.
There was some accusations andsome reality during the whole
Black Lives Matter movement asit emerged a few years ago, of
(04:40):
some companies who had neversaid much of anything publicly
about racial justice suddenlysaying this is the most
important issue in the world tous and we're pledging to make
all kinds of difference.
It sure would have helped themif they'd been doing it for a
long time and not suddenly doingit when there's a big crisis.
So there's a lot of importantstrategy that needs to be
(05:03):
discussed as a company whenyou're deciding do we get
involved in this issue or someother issue or do we stay on the
sidelines?
And I guess one of the mainpoints I want to leave with you
is this is not a binary decisionAre we involved or not involved
?
There's a lot of shades of graybetween one extreme or the
other, and we can talk moreabout that in the discussion.
(05:24):
Well, that was one of the things I wanted to
bring up.
Is that how should anorganization go about deciding
which social issues they wouldlike to be involved in?
What process should they use?
Probably run across that before.
Doug Pinkham (05:38):
Yeah, in fact we did an analysis of talking to
our member organizations aboutthat a few years ago and let me
also say this quickly we are onK Street in Washington, which
you've heard about as thelobbying mecca for Washington,
and you know that because you'refrom DC and the majority of our
members are companies but wehave a lot of associations and
(05:58):
nonprofits and universities.
I think one thing that'sunusual about us is that we are
not involved in politics.
I mean, we monitor politicalissues.
We give advice, managementadvice on how to deal with
various issues and we teachcompliance to follow the laws
and the ethics rules.
But it's in our bylaws that thePublic Affairs Council doesn't
take any position on an issueand nor do we do any campaign
(06:21):
money.
And, frankly, since one of thethings I do is talk to the media
and give speeches, that reallyhelps our credibility because we
really can be a voice of reason, Because our job is to
understand what makes for a goodstrategy, what works, what
doesn't work, and then wecollect organizations that we
know who do it well.
So on this issue of who does agood job of analyzing and
(06:45):
responding, you know, prettyquickly to an issue, I can give
you some interesting examplesbecause and it shows you how
diverse the membership is at thecouncil One is the Mayo Clinic,
which you may know is a verymajor international hospital
chain operating out of Minnesota.
Another is Exxon male and majoroil gas producer.
Announcer (07:05):
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals is another one,
and then another is SouthwestAirlines.
Doug Pinkham (07:09):
You know the discount airline out of Texas.
So very different organizations, but what they have in common
is that they have a each has across-functional team including
communications, pr, governmentaffairs, social impact or
corporate responsibility, legal,you know, and other aspects of
the company someone from theCEO's office.
(07:30):
And when an issue comes alongthat they think, hmm, this may
be something we need to perhapsget involved in, they sit down,
they talk about it, they debateit and they decide A should we
be involved?
And B, if we are involved, dowe want to be a champion?
You know the kind of thingwhere you put your CEO on
television and you know this islike our big issue.
(07:50):
Do you want to be a supporter,where perhaps you know you're
not on the cover of thepublications, the virtual covers
, but perhaps you're part of acoalition or you do it through
your trade association becauseyou do care about the issue, you
put up some time and effort.
Maybe you have an employeevolunteerism program for
employees can get involved.
(08:10):
That's kind of the mid-level.
And then maybe you're a basicsupporter where you say we're
not really quite sure if weshould be weighing in in a major
way, but we are for this.
It's in the public interest inour opinion, weighing in in a
major way.
But we are for this, it's inthe public interest in our
opinion.
So you know, then, you're kindof waiting and watching and
deciding what to do, but thatdoesn't mean you might not.
I mean you might issue astatement, you might communicate
(08:32):
just with your employees, butnot for the public, about why
this issue matters to us.
As we were just going into thefall elections, a lot of
companies, for obvious reasons,don't weigh in on the
presidential race.
And who are we for and against?
because most of them don't havean official position on that,
nor do they donate money to thepresidential campaigns generally
speaking, but what we tried toreally encourage companies to do
(08:54):
is take a stand for democracyand talk about the importance of
open and fair elections andobeying the law after what
happened in 2020.
So that's a way, without evenmentioning names of candidates
you can talk about what's rightand speak up, but you don't have
to be a leader or even a majorsupporter.
So that was one of those onesthat was very obviously, as you
(09:16):
can imagine, politicallysensitive.
There are other issues, likesupport for education.
My goodness, I don't thinkanyone's against education.
Some people don't like publiceducation but support for the
environment is one of the mostpopular causes.
We monitor public opinion onvarious forms of discrimination.
In fact, we do an annualopinion survey with a major
(09:36):
online polling firm calledMorning Consult, and we've done
it for 12 years now and for anumber of those years we've been
monitoring.
Do you think that majorcompanies should be involved in
this social issue?
And we list the environment,ending hunger, discrimination by
race, gender and so forth.
Education, human rights, votingrights, abortion.
(09:58):
You know, a sort of a commonsense, bipartisan approach to
immigration.
We don't even ask an extremeleft or extreme right view on
immigration.
You know, do you feel likesomething should be done?
Should companies be weighing in?
But the question isn't do youbelieve this issue is important?
It's do you want bigcorporations involved?
And what you find is there arepeople on the far left who don't
(10:20):
want companies involved becausethey don't really trust them.
But there's even more people onthe far left who don't want
companies involved because theydon't really trust them.
But there's even more people onthe far right these days and
this is relatively new who don'tlike the fact that a lot of the
issues big companies haveweighed in on, maybe take a
different take on a social issue, that they may feel the
opposite about it.
They might be pro-life, theymight think we put too much
(10:42):
money into public education, orthey may feel environmental laws
are too strict.
So there has been a bit of apushback, but one of the things
we're finding is that, despitesome of the backlash and the
criticisms of some companies forbeing too woke, that public
support for companies beinginvolved in social issues has
only increased.
It has not decreased.
(11:03):
And even after the Trumpelection, I would wager that
next year when we ask thisquestion, we will find that at
minimum it has stayed the same.
And again, the highest ratedissues are, you know, starts
with the environment.
But we've seen, you know, yearover year, out of this last year
, out of 12 issues, 11 of themshowed an increase.
Peter Woolfolk (11:24):
Well, let me sort of jump in on that one,
because I was looking at thelist of those issues that your
organization listed and I'm justgoing to read the top six,
because all these had a 60 pluspercent agreement that they
should have some support, and itstarts with the support for the
(11:45):
environment and sustainability,then ending hunger and
supporting food security, endingdiscrimination by race, ending
discrimination by gender,supporting access to quality
education and expanding humanrights.
Those are the top ones becauseall of those had approval or
ratings that over 60 percentthat there should be some
(12:08):
engagement, and those ratingswere higher than they were in
2023, in some cases by four orfive points or maybe one or two.
But I agree with you becausethis does show that there has
been growth in the fact thatemployees, or whoever else is in
that organization, they do wantsupport for these particular
issues, if not other issues aswell.
Doug Pinkham (12:29):
That's right, but one of the things that's really
striking is we have the ability.
I'm a real nerd when it comesto polling, so I have a document
sitting here that's like 700pages of crosstabs.
Oh boy, women over 65 feelabout this and you really have
to be a geek to get into this,but it's fascinating.
So when you divide it up bypolitical leanings, you know you
tend to be more Republicanversus Democrat.
(12:51):
I have never seen such a largedelta between what Republicans
would like big companies to doversus Democrats.
The difference, the gap, rangesfrom 13 points and that's the
smallest one, and that's likesupport for education and food
security.
You know difference betweenwhat Republicans and the higher
(13:11):
number, what Democrats want.
And then it gets all the way upto 27 percentage points and
that's, of course, legal accessto abortions.
But there's some others withlarge deltas, like ending
discrimination on genderidentity and supporting sort of
common sense immigration reform,and those are like 25, 26
percentage points, and I thinkthat helps explain some of the
(13:33):
negative partisanship thatexists.
It isn't as much over fiscalissues like tax policy, it's
over the social issueseverything from abortion to
immigration, to how you definediscrimination should apply to
people who are transgender oryou know what I'm saying but
even things like, for instance,ending discrimination by gender.
(13:54):
I'm old enough to remember whenwomen were really treated
shabbily in the workplace, andunfortunately that's still the
case in some companies.
But by and large a lot ofimprovement has been made.
I think if you talk to a woman60 years old, she would probably
say you know, it's not great,but it's definitely much better.
Yet the difference between whatRepublicans expect companies to
(14:16):
do and Democrats is fairlylarge, and only a little over
50% of Republicans would like tosee companies involved.
So this is just really aninteresting example of how
different two major groups ofAmericans Democrats and
Republicans feel about an issueaffecting business.
Peter Woolfolk (14:35):
Well, you know, on that particular issue, the
other part of that in terms ofwomen's involvement,
particularly on boards ofdirectors, that's where there's,
you know, huge disparity in howmany women are actually
appointed to or members ofboards of directors.
I mean it certainly has beenincreasing, but it's very, very
(14:57):
noticeable about that sort ofthing.
Doug Pinkham (15:00):
I totally agree.
I think this is true for allforms of discrimination is it's
great when we show progress, butwe shouldn't declare victory.
And I don't think we're close.
I mean, I think women have comea long way.
My board of directors I have avery large board and when I got
there in 1997, I'm guessing itwas probably 10% female.
Now it's probably 50% female,so that's real progress.
(15:22):
And we female now it's probably50% female, so that's natural
progress.
And we've also had I thinkwe've had more female chair
chairs of the board than men.
So I feel good about that froma leadership standpoint.
But then you look at other areasof discrimination, such as
discrimination by race and inthe public affairs profession.
We do surveys on this and wehave seen improvement in terms
of people of color entering theprofession.
(15:44):
But where we have seen a falloff is in people of color
sticking with it and making itup to the top job affairs not
(16:05):
necessarily with our members tohelp give them some executive
education and mentorship to makeit easier for them to move into
the top job.
Basically get them prepped andhave a greater chance, Because
we have a long way to go interms of people of color being
in leadership positions, and Ithink that's just a good way for
companies to look at it and forindustries and professions,
that it's not an all or nothingand it's not just one strategy.
You might want to look at itand for industries and
professions that it's not an allor nothing.
It's, you know, and it's notjust one strategy.
You might want to look at whatyour specific challenge is and
(16:27):
how much progress you know stillneeds to be made.
Peter Woolfolk (16:31):
You know.
The other thing that alsohappens with that is that once
an organization does decidewhich issue it is that they're
going to be involved in youraudience, if you will whether
it's employees or others thenwant to find out how are're
going to be involved in youraudience, if you will whether
it's employees or others thenwant to find out how are you
going to be involved and beginto see some results and some
sort of regular reporting onwhat it is you're doing and how
(16:53):
are you helping to have thisparticular issue be successful.
Doug Pinkham (16:59):
I totally agree.
There's been this wholemovement underway in the
corporate world over the last 30years, basically saying if you
can't measure it, then itdoesn't count, because sometimes
it's the fact that somethingdidn't happen especially if
(17:22):
you're a lobbyist that might bean accomplishment, or an article
didn't appear in the media thatwas critical of the boss.
But there are a lot of ways youcan measure.
You look at opinion polling ofthe public, of thought leaders,
of your own employees.
How do people associate whatyou do for a living?
Is it positive or negative?
There's also services that willtrack the tone of media
(17:46):
coverage and you can see.
Okay, the general tone hasimproved six percentage points
since last year.
So there are a lot of ways todo that.
So it's no longer an excuse tosay that the tools are not
available to measure it.
So it is very important that youdo that, and I think the
smartest companies are ones thatchoose issues that seem to fit
(18:08):
them.
And that doesn't mean you onlycan choose one.
You choose several.
But if you have methodology andyou explain it to your
employees and maybe includeemployees in the decision about
how involved should we be, italso is important to have that
because it allows you to say no,because inevitably someone
maybe someone important withinyour company comes to you and
says we need you to weigh in onthis issue and you have to be
(18:31):
able to say well, remember, wehad that strategy meeting and we
talked about like 40 differentissues and we narrowed it down
to five.
Unfortunately, that just wasn'tone we could do.
But here's some other resources, here's some groups you can get
involved in personally if youwant to advance that issue.
So I think what it comes downto, the lesson there is to do
something.
Well, you have to decide.
You can't make everyone happy.
(18:52):
Somebody once said I don't knowthe secret to success.
But the secret to failure is toplease everyone or try to please
everyone.
But I think when you're willingto say we don't do that, then
they will take you moreseriously when you say look what
we have achieved.
Peter Woolfolk (19:05):
You know, I think the other thing too is
deciding how we're going to getinvolved, because involvement
can include employees at alllevels.
It can include C-suite peopleor combinations thereof.
So obviously there should besome discussion about how we're
going to get involved, who'sgoing to be involved you know
those kinds of discussions sothat people can see that, yes,
(19:28):
we are serious I know becauseI'm doing this and then also
talk about the results of yourengagements as well.
Doug Pinkham (19:35):
That's right.
It's the amount of engagement,like, let's say it's an employee
volunteerism program.
I used to be a judge for thePlace of Light Foundation, which
gave awards for corporatevolunteerism, and I remember we
would read, you know, casestudies from companies who would
get their retirees involved youknow, people who retired from
the company because they haveextra time and maybe it's to you
know help pick up trash in thepark, or maybe it's to write
(19:58):
their members of Congress orcity councilmen or state
representatives on an importantissue that benefits the public,
and retired people are veryresponsive to that.
So you know, but you don't wantto just count which is nice to
show we had a great turnout forthe employee service project.
But then you survey youremployees and was this
worthwhile?
Do you feel it made adifference?
(20:18):
And you talk to your partners.
You know the charitableorganizations you've helped and
get them to be very straightwith you.
Peter Woolfolk (20:26):
Were we in the way or were we helpful?
Doug Pinkham (20:28):
And I've seen both .
I've seen gosh, I've seen awork project where a bunch of
volunteers came in to do somepainting in an inner city
community building and they dida terrible job.
And you know, I and some otherswere going around touching it up
afterwards because we felt sobad.
So you've got to make sure thatpeople take it seriously and if
they're going to do a good job,then if you don't, you go back
(20:49):
and fix it so that no one isleft with a bad taste in their
mouth and no one says you know,you didn't really care about
helping us, this was just asocial event for your staff.
Peter Woolfolk (20:59):
You know some of those that I have seen I think
Subaru is perhaps one in that,yes, they sell cars, but their
social engagement has nothing todo with automobiles.
It has to do with nationalforests and, in some cases,
animals.
That they are very, very upfront and vocal I shouldn't say
vocal, but things aboutencouraging people to adopt
(21:22):
animals and take care ofnational forests.
Doug Pinkham (21:26):
Well, I mean, I could tie that string together.
If you think about your Subaruand people take it on off-road
and it gives you, you know, andpeople take it on off-road and
it gives you you know, you see,you know the commercials of
people going camping in theirSubarus, so it kind of sort of
fits in the same way.
Nike is very active insupporting wilderness areas
because you know, you wear theirshoes, their hiking boots,
(21:47):
you're an active person.
If you're an active person,then you probably appreciate
wilderness.
So that isn't far-fetched.
I've seen ones that are clearlyfar-fetched, especially people
supporting human rights andcivil rights and so forth.
Yet they not only haven't doneanything in the past, perhaps
they've done a lot of supportfor politicians who feel exactly
(22:08):
the opposite, or the CEO hassaid some indelicate things that
would lead you to think thatthey were not as open-minded on
issues of race, for instance.
You have to look at your historyand this is where the
communications executive playsan incredibly important role
because, as all of yourlisteners know who work in this
field and I have you know partof your job is to tell truth to
(22:30):
power and it's to diplomaticallysay to the CEO let me explain
why we're not going to look good, we're going to look actually
bad if we do this, because ofwhat happened that incident four
years ago and whatever else youknow and the public hasn't
forgotten and so we have to bevery careful about the issues we
get involved in.
And, in fact, if we do getinvolved, it would be good for
(22:52):
us to acknowledge that werealize some will be skeptical.
In other words, you acknowledgethat there will be opposition.
A good friend of mine who usedto run government affairs at
Target had a saying that I stillquote, and it's this that when
you're a big company and you'refacing a potential scandal or
something that looks likewrongdoing by the company and
(23:13):
you're trying to deal from acommunications perspective with
critics and the media, you havetwo options you can either
appear evil or you can appearstupid.
And his advice was pick stupid,he said, because the public
will forgive stupid If you sayoh, my gosh, did we screw up?
Oh, I don't know what we werethinking, we really messed this
(23:33):
up and we apologize and we willdo everything possible to make
it okay.
I mean, yes, that's hard, butpeople will have some respect
for the spokesperson and the CEOas human beings, because
everybody makes mistakes.
But where you appear evil iswhen you say we didn't do
anything wrong or it wasn't ourfault or my lawyer won't.
Let me say anything about it,because you know how lawyers are
(23:55):
.
Anything that looks like youare escaping the potential for
taking blame.
In fact, I would argue thateven when you're not all that
guilty in other words, whereit's debatable about whether
you're really at fault you sayyou know what someone's at fault
, but regardless we feelterrible about it and here's
what we're going to do about it.
Folks are so used to CEOs andpoliticians getting up there and
(24:24):
denying wrongdoing that ifyou're willing to take the hits
and say we're going to make itright In a way I've seen polling
that shows that actuallyimproves your reputation more
than if nothing had happened.
So the act of genuinelyapologizing and saying we didn't
do it correctly, interestingly,is actually a way to improve
your reputation, because ithappens so rarely.
Peter Woolfolk (24:43):
Well, not only that, it is perhaps a skill you
should learn under crisiscommunications as to how you go
about handling those kinds ofthings.
You're absolutely right,because if you say no, we didn't
do it, or that, no comment,those things can really, really
sink you.
And I had a guy on here not toolong ago.
(25:04):
All he does is crisiscommunications and one of the
things is that you can comment,and that comment could be that,
yes, we certainly have a lot tosay, but you know right now
we're under directors from thecourt that we can't say anything
.
But once that is rectified,we'll be more than happy to
answer all your questions.
You know something along thoselines.
Doug Pinkham (25:27):
That's an excellent point, and in fact, I
would argue that this is a timewhen over-communicating is a
good thing.
In other words, we're going tohave a weekly briefing until the
last question is ever asked.
And if at some point thereporters stop showing up and
are getting tired.
That doesn't mean you shouldgive up.
You should say hey, we're stillwilling to do a weekly briefing
.
It's about, it's like totaltransparency in a situation like
that, to the point where peopleare actually tired of listening
(25:49):
to you but they know you're nothiding anything.
And I think that's what really,really matters that you're
willing to let your hair downand say you know, we will tell
you everything we know.
And if we don't know, we'lltell you that too.
We'll say we're not sure, butwe'll find out.
So there is a way to manage it.
One thing I'd actually like toadd to that we did a study some
years ago that we should update.
(26:10):
That's really interesting, andit was how to manage crises and
controversies.
So a lot of research has beendone on the art of crisis
management but, my view is notenough has been done about
controversy management.
So, for example, if you take aposition on a social issue and
some of your employees are upset, or the public's upset, that's
a controversy.
You know, in your careerworking in communications, you
(26:33):
might face a handful of real,honest-to-god crises, like
really big problems, dangerousor controversial, but you might
have a new controversy everyweek.
And one of the things westudied is looked at what
actions the public would take ifa company did something.
That was a crisis, and wedefine that versus a controversy
(26:53):
.
And what we found is the waythe human brain reacts
emotionally to something.
It's almost identical.
And the two actions we measuredis whether people would threaten
to no longer do business withyou.
You know, boycott you.
And again, sometimes peopledon't follow through, but it's
the fact that that's what theywant to do is boycott you.
And then secondly, is to say badthings about you.
(27:14):
Now, the interesting conclusionfrom that is people are more
likely to walk out than speakout, meaning they're more likely
to quietly stop doing businesswith you than say bad stuff
about you online, which is asurprise, because what you see
online it seems loud and oh myGod, look what they're doing,
but actually that's a fractionof the people who are actually
(27:34):
upset.
So that was, I think, animportant takeaway from that.
But what we found is thatroughly the same percentage of
whether it was a crisis orcontroversy would stop doing
business with you and speak out.
And that tells me that, my God,every company in America needs
controversy training, becausethey're a different animal.
They often don't last as long.
(27:55):
They can be triggered by awhole host of different things,
but the fact that the brain isreacting the same way to an oil
spill or an industrial accident,as look at that company's
position on that social issue.
That's terrible, and we just maynot take that second one
seriously.
But in terms of how thatindividual stakeholder feels it
might be absolutely identical toa major industrial accident.
Peter Woolfolk (28:20):
Well, Doug, you have given us quite a bit of
information on this topic.
Is there anything you think wemay have missed or do you want
to address before we call it aday?
Doug Pinkham (28:30):
I guess the only thing I would say is I would
expect that public expectationsand employee expectations for
companies to be involved insocial causes will only increase
.
People may not always like bigcompanies, but they feel that
companies are very competent,they're good at what they do and
they have more faith incompanies than government.
So it stands to reason thatcompanies will be expected to do
(28:52):
more and more.
And you can't always expect toget a thank you.
You know you may be saying toyour CEO you know we should get
involved in this, and the CEOwill say well, let me get out of
it.
And the answer is the publicwon't think we're any worse than
our competitor, but you may notget a trophy, you may not get
an award, but if you don't doanything, then you're going to
be viewed as the villain, as Isaid earlier, and as evil, and
(29:16):
so we're going to have to getused to the fact that
expectations will only increase.
Peter Woolfolk (29:20):
So, we're going to have to get used to the fact
that expectations will onlyincrease.
Well, doug, let me say thankyou so very, very much for
contributing this valuableinformation for our listeners,
because this is something thatcertainly a lot of people have
an interest in, and the moreinformation we can provide them,
the better off they will be.
So let me say, in the future,if you have some other great
ideas and issues that you thinkwe should cover, please don't
(29:41):
let us know.
Doug Pinkham (29:42):
Well, I'm happy to do that Again.
I will do a very shortcommercial, just for purposes of
access to information.
If you want to go to ourwebsite, it's
pacpublicaffairscouncilorg.
And under research.
Everything we've ever publishedis free and available to an
organization, whether they're amember or not the study on
(30:04):
crises and controversies, ourpoll survey, or annual poll,
going back 12 years, but thedata is very rich.
Peter Woolfolk (30:10):
Whether you're an academic or a practitioner in
the field, there's a lot ofimportant lessons to learn and
you're certainly welcome to usethe research we've created well,
that's a very generous offerand I'm sure many of our
listeners will take you up onthat, and I certainly want to
say thank you again for being aguest on our show, and I also
want to thank our listeners forcontinuing to listen and to
(30:33):
support us and assure that theywill get a lot from what Doug
has presented us today.
So the other thing is, pleasewe'd certainly like to get a
review from you and also sharethis information with your
friends and please don't forgetto listen to the next edition of
the Public Relations ReviewPodcast.
Announcer (30:51):
This podcast is produced by Communication
Strategies, an award-winningpublic relations and public
affairs firm headquartered inNashville, Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us.
Welcome.
This is the Public RelationsReview Podcast, a program to
discuss the many facets ofpublic relations with seasoned
professionals, educators,authors and others.
Now here is your host, peterWoolfolk is your host, peter
(00:29):
Woolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:29):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
Now, this podcast is ranked byApple as among the top 1% of
podcasts worldwide, so let mesay thank you to all of our
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if you enjoy the podcast, please, we certainly would like to get
a review from you.
Now, in this episode, we'regoing to have a discussion about
(00:51):
whether it is wise orbeneficial that corporations
engage in social movements.
Well, my guest today says yes,it is.
He was elected to the head ofthe Public Affairs Council in
1997.
Under his leadership, theCouncil has expanded its
membership, online services,research on emerging public
(01:11):
affairs trends, conferences andglobal public affairs program.
He has written numerousarticles and books and is a
frequent speaker on publicaffairs, politics,
communications and corporatemanagement.
Now, before joining the council, he was vice president of
communications for the AmericanGas Association.
(01:32):
He is also an accredited memberof the Public Relations Society
of America and he serves on theboard of Institute for Public
Relations.
Now joining me from WashingtonDC which, by the way, happens to
be my hometown is the presidentof the Public Affairs Council,
doug Pinkham.
Doug, welcome to the podcast.
Doug Pinkham (01:48):
Well, it's good to be here.
Peter, it's nice to meet youvirtually.
Peter Woolfolk (01:52):
Well, and thank you so much, and same here.
Look, you know you believe itis important that corporations
and other large organizationsbecome in social issues.
Why
Well a number of reasons.
Social issues.
Why do you believe that this isso important?
Well, a number of reasons.
One is, I mean, ideally, ifyou're going to be a company
with a long run, you know it'sgoing to be around for a long
(02:13):
time.
Obviously, you got to have goodproducts and services at a fair
price, but you also have totreat people well.
You got to have a goodworkforce and I think one of the
real secrets is to create thenot just the impression, but the
reality that you try to operatein the public interest.
It doesn't mean that you'regovernment.
It doesn't mean that you're acharity.
But if you're going to make andsell a product, you're doing it
in a responsible way.
(02:34):
In addition and that's kind ofthe argument for companies just
getting involved in corporateresponsibility in general, what
we have seen is a real trend inthe last 10 years.
In general, what we have seenis a real trend in the last 10
years as companies are findingthere is a real decline in
population in Gen Z.
There just aren't as many youngpeople as there were when I was
(02:54):
younger, as when you were youngwhen, of course, it was very
competitive to get your firstjob, and so the war for talent
is real, and a lot of thepressure in fact, the majority
of the pressure for companies tobe involved in various social
issues is coming from their ownemployees.
The first study we at theCouncil did that made this point
, that proved this point wasback in 2016.
And we since have thenreplicated it several times.
(03:17):
So that's where a lot of theexpectations are coming from not
just the general public, butyour own employees.
So if you want to have a greatworkforce and people motivated
and, once they start, stickaround so they can tell their
friends what a great place theywork, you need to be engaged in
society.
So it's one of those situationswhere there's a number of
(03:39):
reasons to do this.
Having said that, it'sdefinitely not a
one-size-fits-all kind ofpractice to be involved in a
social cause.
It will depend entirely on whatsector you work in, what your
history is, what your trackrecord, what your CEO has said
or done in the past, what yourcompetitors are doing, what the
(03:59):
real needs are.
In other words, you don't wantto choose such a small or
esoteric issue that no one seemsto care about, but you also
don't want to choose such asmall or esoteric issue that no
one seems to care about.
But you also don't want to jumpon board a very popular issue
if there's just zero connectionto your company in either the
things you make and sell or yourvalues or statements or
(04:20):
employee volunteerism.
If you do that, you look likeyou're either greenwashing, if
it's an environmental case whereyou're pretending to be
environmentally beneficial, oryou're just being an opportunist
and just jumping on board.
There was some accusations andsome reality during the whole
Black Lives Matter movement asit emerged a few years ago, of
(04:40):
some companies who had neversaid much of anything publicly
about racial justice suddenlysaying this is the most
important issue in the world tous and we're pledging to make
all kinds of difference.
It sure would have helped themif they'd been doing it for a
long time and not suddenly doingit when there's a big crisis.
So there's a lot of importantstrategy that needs to be
(05:03):
discussed as a company whenyou're deciding do we get
involved in this issue or someother issue or do we stay on the
sidelines?
And I guess one of the mainpoints I want to leave with you
is this is not a binary decisionAre we involved or not involved
?
There's a lot of shades of graybetween one extreme or the
other, and we can talk moreabout that in the discussion.
(05:24):
Well, that was one of the things I wanted to
bring up.
Is that how should anorganization go about deciding
which social issues they wouldlike to be involved in?
What process should they use?
Probably run across that before.
Doug Pinkham (05:38):
Yeah, in fact we did an analysis of talking to
our member organizations aboutthat a few years ago and let me
also say this quickly we are onK Street in Washington, which
you've heard about as thelobbying mecca for Washington,
and you know that because you'refrom DC and the majority of our
members are companies but wehave a lot of associations and
(05:58):
nonprofits and universities.
I think one thing that'sunusual about us is that we are
not involved in politics.
I mean, we monitor politicalissues.
We give advice, managementadvice on how to deal with
various issues and we teachcompliance to follow the laws
and the ethics rules.
But it's in our bylaws that thePublic Affairs Council doesn't
take any position on an issueand nor do we do any campaign
(06:21):
money.
And, frankly, since one of thethings I do is talk to the media
and give speeches, that reallyhelps our credibility because we
really can be a voice of reason, Because our job is to
understand what makes for a goodstrategy, what works, what
doesn't work, and then wecollect organizations that we
know who do it well.
So on this issue of who does agood job of analyzing and
(06:45):
responding, you know, prettyquickly to an issue, I can give
you some interesting examplesbecause and it shows you how
diverse the membership is at thecouncil One is the Mayo Clinic,
which you may know is a verymajor international hospital
chain operating out of Minnesota.
Another is Exxon male and majoroil gas producer.
Announcer (07:05):
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals is another one,
and then another is SouthwestAirlines.
Doug Pinkham (07:09):
You know the discount airline out of Texas.
So very different organizations, but what they have in common
is that they have a each has across-functional team including
communications, pr, governmentaffairs, social impact or
corporate responsibility, legal,you know, and other aspects of
the company someone from theCEO's office.
(07:30):
And when an issue comes alongthat they think, hmm, this may
be something we need to perhapsget involved in, they sit down,
they talk about it, they debateit and they decide A should we
be involved?
And B, if we are involved, dowe want to be a champion?
You know the kind of thingwhere you put your CEO on
television and you know this islike our big issue.
(07:50):
Do you want to be a supporter,where perhaps you know you're
not on the cover of thepublications, the virtual covers
, but perhaps you're part of acoalition or you do it through
your trade association becauseyou do care about the issue, you
put up some time and effort.
Maybe you have an employeevolunteerism program for
employees can get involved.
(08:10):
That's kind of the mid-level.
And then maybe you're a basicsupporter where you say we're
not really quite sure if weshould be weighing in in a major
way, but we are for this.
It's in the public interest inour opinion, weighing in in a
major way.
But we are for this, it's inthe public interest in our
opinion.
So you know, then, you're kindof waiting and watching and
deciding what to do, but thatdoesn't mean you might not.
I mean you might issue astatement, you might communicate
(08:32):
just with your employees, butnot for the public, about why
this issue matters to us.
As we were just going into thefall elections, a lot of
companies, for obvious reasons,don't weigh in on the
presidential race.
And who are we for and against?
because most of them don't havean official position on that,
nor do they donate money to thepresidential campaigns generally
speaking, but what we tried toreally encourage companies to do
(08:54):
is take a stand for democracyand talk about the importance of
open and fair elections andobeying the law after what
happened in 2020.
So that's a way, without evenmentioning names of candidates
you can talk about what's rightand speak up, but you don't have
to be a leader or even a majorsupporter.
So that was one of those onesthat was very obviously, as you
(09:16):
can imagine, politicallysensitive.
There are other issues, likesupport for education.
My goodness, I don't thinkanyone's against education.
Some people don't like publiceducation but support for the
environment is one of the mostpopular causes.
We monitor public opinion onvarious forms of discrimination.
In fact, we do an annualopinion survey with a major
(09:36):
online polling firm calledMorning Consult, and we've done
it for 12 years now and for anumber of those years we've been
monitoring.
Do you think that majorcompanies should be involved in
this social issue?
And we list the environment,ending hunger, discrimination by
race, gender and so forth.
Education, human rights, votingrights, abortion.
(09:58):
You know, a sort of a commonsense, bipartisan approach to
immigration.
We don't even ask an extremeleft or extreme right view on
immigration.
You know, do you feel likesomething should be done?
Should companies be weighing in?
But the question isn't do youbelieve this issue is important?
It's do you want bigcorporations involved?
And what you find is there arepeople on the far left who don't
(10:20):
want companies involved becausethey don't really trust them.
But there's even more people onthe far left who don't want
companies involved because theydon't really trust them.
But there's even more people onthe far right these days and
this is relatively new who don'tlike the fact that a lot of the
issues big companies haveweighed in on, maybe take a
different take on a social issue, that they may feel the
opposite about it.
They might be pro-life, theymight think we put too much
(10:42):
money into public education, orthey may feel environmental laws
are too strict.
So there has been a bit of apushback, but one of the things
we're finding is that, despitesome of the backlash and the
criticisms of some companies forbeing too woke, that public
support for companies beinginvolved in social issues has
only increased.
It has not decreased.
(11:03):
And even after the Trumpelection, I would wager that
next year when we ask thisquestion, we will find that at
minimum it has stayed the same.
And again, the highest ratedissues are, you know, starts
with the environment.
But we've seen, you know, yearover year, out of this last year
, out of 12 issues, 11 of themshowed an increase.
Peter Woolfolk (11:24):
Well, let me sort of jump in on that one,
because I was looking at thelist of those issues that your
organization listed and I'm justgoing to read the top six,
because all these had a 60 pluspercent agreement that they
should have some support, and itstarts with the support for the
(11:45):
environment and sustainability,then ending hunger and
supporting food security, endingdiscrimination by race, ending
discrimination by gender,supporting access to quality
education and expanding humanrights.
Those are the top ones becauseall of those had approval or
ratings that over 60 percentthat there should be some
(12:08):
engagement, and those ratingswere higher than they were in
2023, in some cases by four orfive points or maybe one or two.
But I agree with you becausethis does show that there has
been growth in the fact thatemployees, or whoever else is in
that organization, they do wantsupport for these particular
issues, if not other issues aswell.
Doug Pinkham (12:29):
That's right, but one of the things that's really
striking is we have the ability.
I'm a real nerd when it comesto polling, so I have a document
sitting here that's like 700pages of crosstabs.
Oh boy, women over 65 feelabout this and you really have
to be a geek to get into this,but it's fascinating.
So when you divide it up bypolitical leanings, you know you
tend to be more Republicanversus Democrat.
(12:51):
I have never seen such a largedelta between what Republicans
would like big companies to doversus Democrats.
The difference, the gap, rangesfrom 13 points and that's the
smallest one, and that's likesupport for education and food
security.
You know difference betweenwhat Republicans and the higher
(13:11):
number, what Democrats want.
And then it gets all the way upto 27 percentage points and
that's, of course, legal accessto abortions.
But there's some others withlarge deltas, like ending
discrimination on genderidentity and supporting sort of
common sense immigration reform,and those are like 25, 26
percentage points, and I thinkthat helps explain some of the
(13:33):
negative partisanship thatexists.
It isn't as much over fiscalissues like tax policy, it's
over the social issueseverything from abortion to
immigration, to how you definediscrimination should apply to
people who are transgender oryou know what I'm saying but
even things like, for instance,ending discrimination by gender.
(13:54):
I'm old enough to remember whenwomen were really treated
shabbily in the workplace, andunfortunately that's still the
case in some companies.
But by and large a lot ofimprovement has been made.
I think if you talk to a woman60 years old, she would probably
say you know, it's not great,but it's definitely much better.
Yet the difference between whatRepublicans expect companies to
(14:16):
do and Democrats is fairlylarge, and only a little over
50% of Republicans would like tosee companies involved.
So this is just really aninteresting example of how
different two major groups ofAmericans Democrats and
Republicans feel about an issueaffecting business.
Peter Woolfolk (14:35):
Well, you know, on that particular issue, the
other part of that in terms ofwomen's involvement,
particularly on boards ofdirectors, that's where there's,
you know, huge disparity in howmany women are actually
appointed to or members ofboards of directors.
I mean it certainly has beenincreasing, but it's very, very
(14:57):
noticeable about that sort ofthing.
Doug Pinkham (15:00):
I totally agree.
I think this is true for allforms of discrimination is it's
great when we show progress, butwe shouldn't declare victory.
And I don't think we're close.
I mean, I think women have comea long way.
My board of directors I have avery large board and when I got
there in 1997, I'm guessing itwas probably 10% female.
Now it's probably 50% female,so that's real progress.
(15:22):
And we female now it's probably50% female, so that's natural
progress.
And we've also had I thinkwe've had more female chair
chairs of the board than men.
So I feel good about that froma leadership standpoint.
But then you look at other areasof discrimination, such as
discrimination by race and inthe public affairs profession.
We do surveys on this and wehave seen improvement in terms
of people of color entering theprofession.
(15:44):
But where we have seen a falloff is in people of color
sticking with it and making itup to the top job affairs not
(16:05):
necessarily with our members tohelp give them some executive
education and mentorship to makeit easier for them to move into
the top job.
Basically get them prepped andhave a greater chance, Because
we have a long way to go interms of people of color being
in leadership positions, and Ithink that's just a good way for
companies to look at it and forindustries and professions,
that it's not an all or nothingand it's not just one strategy.
You might want to look at itand for industries and
professions that it's not an allor nothing.
It's, you know, and it's notjust one strategy.
You might want to look at whatyour specific challenge is and
(16:27):
how much progress you know stillneeds to be made.
Peter Woolfolk (16:31):
You know.
The other thing that alsohappens with that is that once
an organization does decidewhich issue it is that they're
going to be involved in youraudience, if you will whether
it's employees or others thenwant to find out how are're
going to be involved in youraudience, if you will whether
it's employees or others thenwant to find out how are you
going to be involved and beginto see some results and some
sort of regular reporting onwhat it is you're doing and how
(16:53):
are you helping to have thisparticular issue be successful.
Doug Pinkham (16:59):
I totally agree.
There's been this wholemovement underway in the
corporate world over the last 30years, basically saying if you
can't measure it, then itdoesn't count, because sometimes
it's the fact that somethingdidn't happen especially if
(17:22):
you're a lobbyist that might bean accomplishment, or an article
didn't appear in the media thatwas critical of the boss.
But there are a lot of ways youcan measure.
You look at opinion polling ofthe public, of thought leaders,
of your own employees.
How do people associate whatyou do for a living?
Is it positive or negative?
There's also services that willtrack the tone of media
(17:46):
coverage and you can see.
Okay, the general tone hasimproved six percentage points
since last year.
So there are a lot of ways todo that.
So it's no longer an excuse tosay that the tools are not
available to measure it.
So it is very important that youdo that, and I think the
smartest companies are ones thatchoose issues that seem to fit
(18:08):
them.
And that doesn't mean you onlycan choose one.
You choose several.
But if you have methodology andyou explain it to your
employees and maybe includeemployees in the decision about
how involved should we be, italso is important to have that
because it allows you to say no,because inevitably someone
maybe someone important withinyour company comes to you and
says we need you to weigh in onthis issue and you have to be
(18:31):
able to say well, remember, wehad that strategy meeting and we
talked about like 40 differentissues and we narrowed it down
to five.
Unfortunately, that just wasn'tone we could do.
But here's some other resources, here's some groups you can get
involved in personally if youwant to advance that issue.
So I think what it comes downto, the lesson there is to do
something.
Well, you have to decide.
You can't make everyone happy.
(18:52):
Somebody once said I don't knowthe secret to success.
But the secret to failure is toplease everyone or try to please
everyone.
But I think when you're willingto say we don't do that, then
they will take you moreseriously when you say look what
we have achieved.
Peter Woolfolk (19:05):
You know, I think the other thing too is
deciding how we're going to getinvolved, because involvement
can include employees at alllevels.
It can include C-suite peopleor combinations thereof.
So obviously there should besome discussion about how we're
going to get involved, who'sgoing to be involved you know
those kinds of discussions sothat people can see that, yes,
(19:28):
we are serious I know becauseI'm doing this and then also
talk about the results of yourengagements as well.
Doug Pinkham (19:35):
That's right.
It's the amount of engagement,like, let's say it's an employee
volunteerism program.
I used to be a judge for thePlace of Light Foundation, which
gave awards for corporatevolunteerism, and I remember we
would read, you know, casestudies from companies who would
get their retirees involved youknow, people who retired from
the company because they haveextra time and maybe it's to you
know help pick up trash in thepark, or maybe it's to write
(19:58):
their members of Congress orcity councilmen or state
representatives on an importantissue that benefits the public,
and retired people are veryresponsive to that.
So you know, but you don't wantto just count which is nice to
show we had a great turnout forthe employee service project.
But then you survey youremployees and was this
worthwhile?
Do you feel it made adifference?
(20:18):
And you talk to your partners.
You know the charitableorganizations you've helped and
get them to be very straightwith you.
Peter Woolfolk (20:26):
Were we in the way or were we helpful?
Doug Pinkham (20:28):
And I've seen both .
I've seen gosh, I've seen awork project where a bunch of
volunteers came in to do somepainting in an inner city
community building and they dida terrible job.
And you know, I and some otherswere going around touching it up
afterwards because we felt sobad.
So you've got to make sure thatpeople take it seriously and if
they're going to do a good job,then if you don't, you go back
(20:49):
and fix it so that no one isleft with a bad taste in their
mouth and no one says you know,you didn't really care about
helping us, this was just asocial event for your staff.
Peter Woolfolk (20:59):
You know some of those that I have seen I think
Subaru is perhaps one in that,yes, they sell cars, but their
social engagement has nothing todo with automobiles.
It has to do with nationalforests and, in some cases,
animals.
That they are very, very upfront and vocal I shouldn't say
vocal, but things aboutencouraging people to adopt
(21:22):
animals and take care ofnational forests.
Doug Pinkham (21:26):
Well, I mean, I could tie that string together.
If you think about your Subaruand people take it on off-road
and it gives you, you know, andpeople take it on off-road and
it gives you you know, you see,you know the commercials of
people going camping in theirSubarus, so it kind of sort of
fits in the same way.
Nike is very active insupporting wilderness areas
because you know, you wear theirshoes, their hiking boots,
(21:47):
you're an active person.
If you're an active person,then you probably appreciate
wilderness.
So that isn't far-fetched.
I've seen ones that are clearlyfar-fetched, especially people
supporting human rights andcivil rights and so forth.
Yet they not only haven't doneanything in the past, perhaps
they've done a lot of supportfor politicians who feel exactly
(22:08):
the opposite, or the CEO hassaid some indelicate things that
would lead you to think thatthey were not as open-minded on
issues of race, for instance.
You have to look at your historyand this is where the
communications executive playsan incredibly important role
because, as all of yourlisteners know who work in this
field and I have you know partof your job is to tell truth to
(22:30):
power and it's to diplomaticallysay to the CEO let me explain
why we're not going to look good, we're going to look actually
bad if we do this, because ofwhat happened that incident four
years ago and whatever else youknow and the public hasn't
forgotten and so we have to bevery careful about the issues we
get involved in.
And, in fact, if we do getinvolved, it would be good for
(22:52):
us to acknowledge that werealize some will be skeptical.
In other words, you acknowledgethat there will be opposition.
A good friend of mine who usedto run government affairs at
Target had a saying that I stillquote, and it's this that when
you're a big company and you'refacing a potential scandal or
something that looks likewrongdoing by the company and
(23:13):
you're trying to deal from acommunications perspective with
critics and the media, you havetwo options you can either
appear evil or you can appearstupid.
And his advice was pick stupid,he said, because the public
will forgive stupid If you sayoh, my gosh, did we screw up?
Oh, I don't know what we werethinking, we really messed this
(23:33):
up and we apologize and we willdo everything possible to make
it okay.
I mean, yes, that's hard, butpeople will have some respect
for the spokesperson and the CEOas human beings, because
everybody makes mistakes.
But where you appear evil iswhen you say we didn't do
anything wrong or it wasn't ourfault or my lawyer won't.
Let me say anything about it,because you know how lawyers are
(23:55):
.
Anything that looks like youare escaping the potential for
taking blame.
In fact, I would argue thateven when you're not all that
guilty in other words, whereit's debatable about whether
you're really at fault you sayyou know what someone's at fault
, but regardless we feelterrible about it and here's
what we're going to do about it.
Folks are so used to CEOs andpoliticians getting up there and
(24:24):
denying wrongdoing that ifyou're willing to take the hits
and say we're going to make itright In a way I've seen polling
that shows that actuallyimproves your reputation more
than if nothing had happened.
So the act of genuinelyapologizing and saying we didn't
do it correctly, interestingly,is actually a way to improve
your reputation, because ithappens so rarely.
Peter Woolfolk (24:43):
Well, not only that, it is perhaps a skill you
should learn under crisiscommunications as to how you go
about handling those kinds ofthings.
You're absolutely right,because if you say no, we didn't
do it, or that, no comment,those things can really, really
sink you.
And I had a guy on here not toolong ago.
(25:04):
All he does is crisiscommunications and one of the
things is that you can comment,and that comment could be that,
yes, we certainly have a lot tosay, but you know right now
we're under directors from thecourt that we can't say anything
.
But once that is rectified,we'll be more than happy to
answer all your questions.
You know something along thoselines.
Doug Pinkham (25:27):
That's an excellent point, and in fact, I
would argue that this is a timewhen over-communicating is a
good thing.
In other words, we're going tohave a weekly briefing until the
last question is ever asked.
And if at some point thereporters stop showing up and
are getting tired.
That doesn't mean you shouldgive up.
You should say hey, we're stillwilling to do a weekly briefing
.
It's about, it's like totaltransparency in a situation like
that, to the point where peopleare actually tired of listening
(25:49):
to you but they know you're nothiding anything.
And I think that's what really,really matters that you're
willing to let your hair downand say you know, we will tell
you everything we know.
And if we don't know, we'lltell you that too.
We'll say we're not sure, butwe'll find out.
So there is a way to manage it.
One thing I'd actually like toadd to that we did a study some
years ago that we should update.
(26:10):
That's really interesting, andit was how to manage crises and
controversies.
So a lot of research has beendone on the art of crisis
management but, my view is notenough has been done about
controversy management.
So, for example, if you take aposition on a social issue and
some of your employees are upset, or the public's upset, that's
a controversy.
You know, in your careerworking in communications, you
(26:33):
might face a handful of real,honest-to-god crises, like
really big problems, dangerousor controversial, but you might
have a new controversy everyweek.
And one of the things westudied is looked at what
actions the public would take ifa company did something.
That was a crisis, and wedefine that versus a controversy
(26:53):
.
And what we found is the waythe human brain reacts
emotionally to something.
It's almost identical.
And the two actions we measuredis whether people would threaten
to no longer do business withyou.
You know, boycott you.
And again, sometimes peopledon't follow through, but it's
the fact that that's what theywant to do is boycott you.
And then secondly, is to say badthings about you.
(27:14):
Now, the interesting conclusionfrom that is people are more
likely to walk out than speakout, meaning they're more likely
to quietly stop doing businesswith you than say bad stuff
about you online, which is asurprise, because what you see
online it seems loud and oh myGod, look what they're doing,
but actually that's a fractionof the people who are actually
(27:34):
upset.
So that was, I think, animportant takeaway from that.
But what we found is thatroughly the same percentage of
whether it was a crisis orcontroversy would stop doing
business with you and speak out.
And that tells me that, my God,every company in America needs
controversy training, becausethey're a different animal.
They often don't last as long.
(27:55):
They can be triggered by awhole host of different things,
but the fact that the brain isreacting the same way to an oil
spill or an industrial accident,as look at that company's
position on that social issue.
That's terrible, and we just maynot take that second one
seriously.
But in terms of how thatindividual stakeholder feels it
might be absolutely identical toa major industrial accident.
Peter Woolfolk (28:20):
Well, Doug, you have given us quite a bit of
information on this topic.
Is there anything you think wemay have missed or do you want
to address before we call it aday?
Doug Pinkham (28:30):
I guess the only thing I would say is I would
expect that public expectationsand employee expectations for
companies to be involved insocial causes will only increase
.
People may not always like bigcompanies, but they feel that
companies are very competent,they're good at what they do and
they have more faith incompanies than government.
So it stands to reason thatcompanies will be expected to do
(28:52):
more and more.
And you can't always expect toget a thank you.
You know you may be saying toyour CEO you know we should get
involved in this, and the CEOwill say well, let me get out of
it.
And the answer is the publicwon't think we're any worse than
our competitor, but you may notget a trophy, you may not get
an award, but if you don't doanything, then you're going to
be viewed as the villain, as Isaid earlier, and as evil, and
(29:16):
so we're going to have to getused to the fact that
expectations will only increase.
Peter Woolfolk (29:20):
So, we're going to have to get used to the fact
that expectations will onlyincrease.
Well, doug, let me say thankyou so very, very much for
contributing this valuableinformation for our listeners,
because this is something thatcertainly a lot of people have
an interest in, and the moreinformation we can provide them,
the better off they will be.
So let me say, in the future,if you have some other great
ideas and issues that you thinkwe should cover, please don't
(29:41):
let us know.
Doug Pinkham (29:42):
Well, I'm happy to do that Again.
I will do a very shortcommercial, just for purposes of
access to information.
If you want to go to ourwebsite, it's
pacpublicaffairscouncilorg.
And under research.
Everything we've ever publishedis free and available to an
organization, whether they're amember or not the study on
(30:04):
crises and controversies, ourpoll survey, or annual poll,
going back 12 years, but thedata is very rich.
Peter Woolfolk (30:10):
Whether you're an academic or a practitioner in
the field, there's a lot ofimportant lessons to learn and
you're certainly welcome to usethe research we've created well,
that's a very generous offerand I'm sure many of our
listeners will take you up onthat, and I certainly want to
say thank you again for being aguest on our show, and I also
want to thank our listeners forcontinuing to listen and to
(30:33):
support us and assure that theywill get a lot from what Doug
has presented us today.
So the other thing is, pleasewe'd certainly like to get a
review from you and also sharethis information with your
friends and please don't forgetto listen to the next edition of
the Public Relations ReviewPodcast.
Announcer (30:51):
This podcast is produced by Communication
Strategies, an award-winningpublic relations and public
affairs firm headquartered inNashville, Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us.
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