If you don’t take control of your own story someone else will tell a bad version of it for you – or tell theirs instead – so leaders are advised to take ownership of their PR strategy, says Mike Sergeant
From the earliest days of our species, stories have been part of every triumph and every disaster. Before storytelling caught on about 70,000 years ago, early ‘humans’ were limited to cooperation or conflict among small groups of no more than 100 individuals.
The cognitive revolution brought exponentially powerful new possibilities. The ability to create myths, legends and parables allowed much larger groups to mobilise. Civilisation itself has been the story of stories.
Those with the skill to assemble powerful tales – fact and fiction – have changed the fate of nations and of organisations. They’ve hacked the path of history.
So, the power of storytelling was an essential element in the rise of our species, and – for good or ill – pretty much everything that’s happened since.
Which brings us to PR.
Public Relations is a misunderstood profession. At its best it simply means ‘relations’ with the ‘public’. As a business or an individual, you use PR to take control of your story and ensure that it reaches the people you’d like to influence. If you don’t take control of your story, then somebody else will tell a bad version of it for you. Or tell theirs instead. Either could be damaging – financially and emotionally.
But ironically enough, the PR industry has been terrible at managing its own PR. The letters PR are almost a term of abuse. Think of the expressions: ‘that’s just PR’, or ‘a PR attempt to cover up’.
Most people think PR is a mix of champagne-fuelled parties and manic political spin. A non-stop whirligig of making the wicked seem wonderful. In fact, there’s nothing inherently bad about practising PR. These days, with so much transparency and social media visibility, you can’t lie. You can’t really spin that much.
What you can do, though, is assemble powerful true stories. Just as the best leaders and influencers have done for tens of thousands of years. A shame that so much of the PR world has forgotten its central storytelling mission.
It’s an industry in deep, possibly existential, crisis. Most agencies have expunged the letters PR from their websites. Restyling themselves as ‘corporate relations consultancies’, or ‘influencer engagement specialists’ or ‘strategic reputation advisers’ or ‘stakeholder relations specialists’ or ‘digital content strategists’. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Honestly, I’ve never known an industry in such denial about its identity; putting on mask after mask. This is partially to extract ever-greater fees from clients with new services but mainly because few people enter PR as out-and-out passionate storytellers.
There’s a big cost here. Not just to the ‘communications’ industry but to corporate life in general. Because if the PR people aren’t there to be the storytellers-in-chief then who will play that role?
Without some good human narrators around, corporate jargon can easily strangle an organisation. If the CEO and leaders can’t tell convincing stories, then the business will underperform and may even fail.
PR goes wrong when the ‘human’ bit goes AWOL.
So here are some simple tests that I apply to decide whether the PR people have earned their fees, or the Director of Communications is worth their seat at the table:
- When the leaders of the business open their mouths in public, do they sound human?
- When I read the company’s written statements and press releases, do they sound like something anyone might actually say?
- When I look at the company’s website, do I see real people doing interesting and enjoyable things? (if not, why would anyone want to work there?)
- When I walk around the company, do I see people talking, engaging, debating and laughing? Or are they yoked to their PCs in permanent misery sending meaningless emails?
My book PR for Humans is about much more than how an organisation projects its image to the public. In fact, just trying to push your message out to the audience doesn’t work very effectively anymore, if it ever did.
We have all become hyper-aware consumers of news and information. After decades of being marketed at and manipulated through the media in one way or another, audiences have finely tuned ‘BS’ detectors.
The harder PR people try to do the old style ‘sell-ins’ and ‘on-message’ briefings, the more elusive the real prize: audience connection.
If consumers are treated as commodities to be leveraged rather than people, then businesses will struggle to attract loyalty and sales. In fact, they will push customers into the more welcoming and open arms of their competitors.
This isn’t just a fight against corporate jargon and buzzwords. It’s a much deeper struggle for the soul of business in a fast-changing and interconnected world.
The leaders of tomorrow need to know that effective communication has been – and always will be – HUMAN communication. Any business school training modules on PR and marketing needs to shine a light on this essential truth.
So how is new technology changing the game?
All the AI in the world can’t change the simple truth that effective communication starts and ends with a good human story.
Stories are about characters. Characters feel things. Robots will never beat us on stories, because they can’t know what being human means. None of this means that PR can’t deploy technology or use data powerfully. It must! The awesome agencies of the future will combine the most effective digital tools with timelessly beautiful human stories.
Humans and machines will need to be paired up carefully, ethically and intelligently to influence audiences and outcomes.
Storytellers with no command of digital channels will be left scribbling their tales by the riverbank.
Tech geeks with no command of human stories will be disappearing into a dark universe of pointless data.
The union of ancient skills with cutting-edge techniques is the future of PR. It’s an exciting future for those with the flexibility and ambition to embrace it.
Mike Sergeant is an international communications coach and the author of PR for Humans. He delivers media training, public speaking, coaching and reputation advice. Mike began his career at CNN before moving to Reuters, Sky and the BBC – where he spent 13 years as a TV and radio correspondent. www.sergeantleaders.com
AMBA members can enjoy 20% off the RRP for PR for Humans, as part of the Book Club. Click here for details.
