This week my public relations class was honored to receive a lecture on public relations planning from PR expert and practitioner, researcher and educator, Jim Haynes, APR, Fellow PRSA. Jim has worked for several organizations for a longer time than I’ve been alive, so take my word, he definitely knows what he’s talking about.
This is something Jim said which I am definitely adopting: “An organization without a written plan is like a runner in a race without a finish line.” Planning cannot be over emphasized. Organizations need both short term and long term planning to survive and it is at this stage that you ask yourself questions such as: what am I trying to achiever? When do I want to achieve it? This goes to show that at the planning stage you need deadlines and you need measurable objectives.
Imagine that you are planning a wedding and you have all these brilliant ideas in your head but fail to write them down. What do you think will happen? Chances are you will spend more money than you can afford or allocated for the event, you may forget to order the flowers, the invitation cards or worse still, forget to book a hall. Nobody wishes for such a disastrous wedding. The same applies for any organization that is in the race to sell products or ideas. Without a plan your employees are likely to underperform because they are unaware of the expectations their bosses have in terms of deadlines or talent, the organization may fail to meet some of its obligations and most importantly, it may lose some business or a good deal of business.
The truth is, planning relations planning can be a long, slow, time consuming and tiring process, but public relations people cannot do without it. As the adage goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.”
I've also read that strategic plans will fail when companies hire an outside consultant to create one, instead of assembling one in-house. The consultant doesn't know the company, and is not likely to meet and greet with each employee or integrate itself into the working environment. S/he will formulate a plan, hand it back, and then be done. The company is no better off, because suddenly there's this expensive plan, but how do you implement it?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny how we work in a communications field, and yet there seem to be a LOT of examples where no one is communication with each other?