You can always invite professional survey counsel to handle perception monitoring phases of your program, if budget is available. But remember that your PR people are also in perception and behavior business and can pursue same objective: identify untruths, false assumptions, unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions and any other negative perception that might translate into hurtful behaviors.

Here, you need a public relations goal to shoot for as you address aberrations that cropped up during your key audience perception monitoring. And that goal could be to straighten out that dangerous misconception, or correct that gross inaccuracy, or stop that potentially fatal rumor dead in its tracks.

Of course what is a goal without a strategy to show you how to get there? Fortunately, there are only three strategic options available to you when it comes to handling a perception or opinion challenge. Change existing perception, create perception where there may be none, or reinforce it. The wrong strategy pick will taste like hot tea with too many teabags, so be certain new strategy fits well with your new public relations goal. You wouldn’t want to select “change” when facts dictate a “reinforce” strategy.

Keep in mind that members of your target audience will likely react to a powerful message. Still, persuading an audience to your way of thinking is hard work. Which is why your PR folks must create some very special, corrective language. Words that are not only compelling, persuasive and believable, but clear and factual. Only in this way will you be able to correct a perception by shifting opinion towards your point of view, leading to behaviors you are targeting.

Let your communications specialists review your message for impact and persuasiveness. Then, sharpen it before selecting communications tactics most likely to carry your words to attention of your target audience. You can pick from dozens that are available. From speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters, personal meetings and many others. But be sure that tactics you pick are known to reach folks just like your audience members.

It’s wise to respect fact that credibility of a message can depend on its delivery method. So you might consider unveiling it in presentations before smaller gatherings rather than using higher-profile tactics such as news releases. Finally, please recognize that people love progress reports, a fact that will alert you and your PR team to get back out in field and start work on a second perception monitoring session with members of your external audience. You’ll want to use many of same questions used in first benchmark session. Only this time, you’ll be watching very carefully for signs that bad news perception is being altered in your direction.

Here’s a tip for those among us who are impatient. If things aren’t moving fast enough for you, try increasing beat with more communications tactics and increased frequencies.

Yes, if I were coaching you as a manager on how to get your public relations’ money’s worth, I would ask only that you internalize a single reality, then build from there, as outlined above.

By all means worry about behaviors of those key external audiences that most affect your organization, and you as a manager. Then do something positive about them by persuading those key folks to your way of thinking, moving them to take actions that help you achieve your managerial objectives.

end

Bob Kelly counsels managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communi- cations, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:http://www.prcommentary.com

Now, good news is that simply becoming aware that we're projecting our issues with our parents onto our supervisors is often enough to change our behavior and our experiences. On a conscious level we understand how inappropriate it is to expect our supervisors to meet needs of our parents. It's obvious that we're not working for our fathers, for example, and so we can freely express our own opinions with no fear of punishment. When we hear our mothers' voices coming our of our heads, it's often enough of a wake-up call to let us alter our management style, and make more effective and elegant choices. The interesting thing is that when we stop relating to our supervisors as our parents and create healthy and supportive relationships to authority, we often find that our relationships to our parents also improve.

If our supervisors are our parents, then our co-workers are our siblings. This means that we experience sibling rivalry in workplace. We compete against our co-workers for love and attention of our parents (supervisors). This is reason that office politics can be so emotionally charged. We're playing for much higher stakes than we realize. It's not just about getting ahead in our careers--it's about winning approval and attention of our parents. And since we believe that there's not enough love to go around, we will do anything we can do to stay ahead of game. If we grew up with siblings, we will unconsciously resort to strategies we used as children to compete for our parents' attention. If we didn't grow up with siblings, we're at a significant disadvantage in our professional relationships. We've never had to fight for our parents' attention before, while many of our competitors have years of experience.

When we choose to stop relating to our supervisors as our parents, our relationships with our co-workers also improve. We may still compete with our co-workers, of course, but at least now we're no longer competing for love of our parents. We're no longer competing in a high-stakes game. This relieves much of pressure, and allows us to have more fun playing game. The competition we experience with our co-workers is now far more healthy.