How to win friends and executive influence

MediaInsider, the PR Newswire blog, posted an article from PIONet on research that adds some very useful information to the little that’s known about how corporate PR practitioners work to influence and persuade senior management in their organizations – how they obtain and use "clout" – or how they secure perceptions of their value to those organizations.

PIONet is a forum for the discussion of professional issues related to media relations programs for public information officers (PIO) at higher education and research institutions around the globe.

The article, published last month, comments that previous research has established six types of upward influence tactics:

1. Rationality – using facts and data to support a logical argument or to alter a supervisor’s thinking;
2. Coalition – claiming support for one’s opinion by others in the organization or community;
3. Ingratiation – using impression management, flattery and good will, and the promotion of a pleasant relationship when making a request, typically making the person seeking influence appear humble and the superior feel important, or both;
4. Exchange of benefits – negotiating by using bargaining or favors;
5. Assertiveness – using a direct and forceful approach;
6. Upward appeal – gaining the support of those higher up in the organization to support requests.

The PIONet article says that the research found that there was a strong relationship between perceptions of value and organizational influence. The article discusses which upward influence tactics have the greatest impact.

What caught my eye in particular was this commentary in the article:

The results of this study indicate that the PR practitioner should look for ways to maintain and increase perceptions of value from the dominant coalition by establishing a direct reporting relationship with either the president or CEO of the organization. This study also shows that taking on a managerial role correlates to a greater amount of organizational influence because "enactment of a managerial role is positively associated with such benefits as higher salaries, greater status, increased job satisfaction and is a powerful indicator of excellence in public relations and communication management."

This is at the heart of the perennial debate in the communication community on how to get organizational communication firmly on the executive agenda in organizations and treated as a strategic activity, essential to supporting strategic business objectives, rather than as simply the method for conveying messages.

Indeed, this was the subject of a panel discussion in which I participated during a communication conference in Amsterdam last September, at which I also presented.

While that conference was focused on internal communication, the discussion and conclusions of the panel are highly relevant to the research findings reported by PIONet.

Here’s what I reported in September on that panel discussion:

The reality is that, while there are some great examples of success, internal communication as a strategic business function in Europe still broadly remains a poor cousin to, say, marketing and PR in its ability to get serious attention and ongoing commitment from the executive leadership in an organization. And that’s a continuing challenge for communicators, one that formed a key focus during a panel discussion on the first day in which I participated.

The panel debated the broad area of identifying the barriers to employee engagement, what it takes to build it and discussing the biggest challenges for internal communication. The 45-minute session produced great input from the audience and threw up many of the answers you’d expect when a group of senior communicators get together to discuss such topics – connecting employees more effectively with the marketplace; corporate governance and ethics (a big challenge); recognizing employee diversity; internal and external communication are not separate functions; build more trust, listening and acting; "no such thing as an average employee."

On the challenges – which really addressed all the topics everyone discussed – three clear issues emerged:

1. Build up the role of communicators as key value-add facilitators to help the organization achieve its business goals
2. Strive to convert too-often tactical activities into strategic activities
3. Get the balance right between leadership expectations and communicators’ ability to deliver

Gaining executive influence and trust – still real challenges, whether you’re in PR or any other organizational communication discipline.

You can read the complete PIONet article at MediaInsider.