May 2025 PRSA Dallas Letter from the President
Posted by admin on Apr. 30, 2025 / Subscribe 0
Anyone can write an email or a blog. Millions of people post on social media each day. Nearly everyone has an opinion on whether a commercial is good or bad, and there are plenty of people who feel quite comfortable speaking in public.
Basically, anyone can do my job and yours, right?
Every single person in the world frequently communicates in their professional and personal lives. And because of that, they often feel like they have insight into how communications and public relations should be done.
In a corporate environment, accountants don’t ask the maintenance man if he’s certain the red wire should be spliced with the black wire. Lawyers are not second guessed by a salesman regarding litigation. And most of us freely admit to IT that we have no idea what we are doing when we call for support.
But everyone can “communicate”.
So, how do we as communications professionals earn the trust and respect of our colleagues and leaders? The answer is rigor.
For the past few years, I’ve seen a joke take various forms on Facebook. The most common occupations described in the joke are a ship repairman and a plumber - two very different jobs.
In the joke, there’s a broken ship (or toilet), and yet another expert is brought in after many others have failed. He assesses the problem, takes out a single tool, makes a quick adjustment and fixes the ship (or toilet).
The expert hands the customer a pricey bill that results in complaining: “How could it cost so much? It only took you a few minutes to fix.”
The ship repairman (or plumber) explains that while he only bills a few dollars for the actual time and labor, the rest of the bill accounts for his knowledge of how to fix the problem.
He explained there was a rigor to his work, and we need to do the same.
A few years ago, I took an online advanced crisis communications certificate program through PRSA. The program was taught by Helio Fred Garcia, the president of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership. I learned a lot of great information over those six weeks, but one of the most valuable lessons was about rigor.
Garcia told us that business executives are often suspicious of intuition, except their own. They expect rigor. As such, it’s up to us to start to demonstrate the rigor of our profession and the rigor we employ on a daily basis.
Research. Planning. Implementation. Evaluation.
RPIE is rigor. You should be using the fundamentals of RPIE to operate strategically, whether you are creating a campaign or writing a PRSA Dallas Pegasus Award submission. As such, you use data to inform your decisions, and you evaluate your results to determine future actions.
You are not randomly limiting your Tuesday posts on Instagram between 10 am and 2 pm because of a gut feeling - you read the research that told you it was the optimal time range for greater engagement.
Whether you went to school for public relations, marketing, or communications, or you learned on the job and developed your skills and knowledge over time, you are an expert in the area compared to those who work in other fields.
Now don’t get me wrong - I believe in cross-functional collaboration within an organization, and I am blessed to work with a leadership team that values each other’s perspectives to find creative solutions. And whether you work for an in-house communications team or at an agency, it’s always a good practice to listen to your clients and their opinions. Just because they work in a different department or industry doesn’t mean their questions and ideas should be ignored, and more often than not, they are well-intentioned.
But once you’ve listened, don’t be afraid to walk them through the rigor of your craft and why you made certain decisions. You may just earn their trust going forward.
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