What's the state of your relationships with your organization's key constituent groups?  Here's how to find out. 

The only thing that communication people like me do is to build relationships between our clients or employers and their constituent groups — like shareholders, customers, employees, government officials and media.  Many metrics that organizations use to measure the success of their communication investments are merely incomplete approximations of the result that they really want: relationships of trust, respect and mutual understanding.  Most organizations fail to measure the quality of the relationships they have with key internal and external constituent groups, whose expectations must be met to win their support for the goals and objectives of the organization — goals like selling products and services or winning support for public policies that will benefit the organization.  While measures of media impressions, website hits, or even sales and stock prices are useful, they are only indicators of the quality of the underlying relationships.  While you can infer what certain behaviors say about the attractiveness of your product offering or your customers’ loyalty, the only reliable way to check-up on the state of a relationship is to measure the state of the relationship, not its markers.  Many communicators are familiar with a term and process known as a Communications Audit and may think that’s what I’m talking about here.  It’s not.  An audit is an inventory of communication tools and channels, which, at best, are only sometimes compared to best practices.  In either case, the result doesn’t produce a measurement of relationship quality.  A Relationship Check-Up does.  This process of listening to key constituents allows organizations to compare their performance on various measures against their constituents’ expectations for the organization’s performance.  It’s a simple, intuitive idea: find out what it takes to have a successful relationship with someone and then deliver it.  To learn more, download my publication, How To Plan and Manage a Relationship Checkup from my online store for $9.99.  Or, if you’d like to receive a copy free (and who doesn’t like free?), write me at DavidKirk@thePRguy.com or call me at 610.422.0048 and I’ll be happy to send you a copy.

Here are a few examples of my specialized copywriting work.

• Wrote, for a bank CEO, a one-hour equity analyst presentation for the annual analyst meeting. (This assignment, by the way, was given and completed in 5 days, including a weekend...)
   
• Ghosted a "career reminiscence" piece for the chief executive of a chemical products company for the 50th anniversary issue of Chemical Week magazine.
   
• Based on interviews with executives of a Bristol-Myers Squibb subsidiary wrote a profile piece for a leading trade magazine.
   
• Substantially re-wrote speeches, for publication, originally delivered by senior executives of Du Pont Merck and Glaxo.
   
• Wrote, for FMC, and am now licensing to other companies a full-color, illustrated 30-page manager's workbook, Managing Change: How to Plan and Implement an Effective Employee Communication Program.
   
• I have written countless feature articles, speeches, PowerPoint presentations, news releases, employee communication pieces such as Q&A documents, annual reports, brochures, direct mail pieces and Web sites

Here are a few examples of my consulting and planning work.

• Developed a communication plan to support a $90 million implementation of electronic medical records for a major healthsystem, based on in-depth executive interviews and an extensive literature review.
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• Collaborated with senior management of a large hospital to develop a special-purpose employee and community communication program to mitigate any negative impact of the hospital's program to recruit nurses from the Phillipines.
   

  Directed the joint communication planning process for the proposed consolidation of two major urban hospitals in a Northeastern city; process included several Community Relationship Check-Ups, facilitating team meetings, writing a two- year communication plan and presenting research and plan to joint board of directors steering committee.
   

• Developed audience- and issue-specific communication programs for a variety of companies, including opinion-leader communication programs for hospitals.
   
• Developed, managed and directly serviced the internal and external communication plans for a major subsidiary of a Fortune 500 company prior to, during and following the company's top-to-bottom re-engineering project.
   
• For Chemical Products Group of a Frotune 100 company, undertook a variety of project-planning initiatives in support of the director of Public Affairs including how to structure and support the employee and community relations functions at the plant level.
   
• For scores of clients, during a 30+ year career, have developed full-scale, research-based communication programs for specific purposes in support of marketing communication and corporate communication activities including product introductions, management of major crises, corporate identity and others.

Here are a few comments from clients about their coaching experiences with me.

"We have been extremely pleased with the improvements we've made, as a result of your training, in our message development and articulation.  We've not only seen results in the consistency of message reported by press and analysts but we also have seen that people within our organization have a better understanding of our product positioning and strategy.  The techniques we learned in your course have proven to be easy to employ and extremely effective."

"This was an exceptionally  well-done workshop on a topic that I have heard and spoken about myself countless times in the past. Mr. Kirk's style was informative, humorous and easy-going.  I highly recommend this kind of training to other employees.  Nice job!"  

“Techniques for dealing with difficult questions and bridging to established messages were great.  The on-camera interviews were invaluable in judging personal performance objectively and applying other feedback to personal improvement.” 

"Speaker knew his audience well -- helped to make presentation effective.  He used all of his techniques.  Seeing it in action was the most helpful element of learning." 

"David was an excellent instructor.  He promoted introspection on some of the most basic tasks we often take for granted or 'should just know.' I feel I took a great deal of information from the presentation and hope it helps me to become a more effective communicator.  Great job!" 

"I have not heard such positive response about a speaker since joining this organization three years ago.  Our meeting was held for two days after your presentation and everyone that attended had rave reviews about you and the material you covered."

“A very good experience.  Very worthwhile!” 

“You are an excellent, engaging presenter.  Your obvious extensive preparation made our day very valuable!” 

“The workshop was extremely well organized and the leader presented himself in a manner which kept our attention.  A very interesting seminar.  Would recommend it to anyone.” 

“You are an excellent communicator and group trainer facilitator!  It’s so clear you have a passion for and live your profession.” 

“Very talented!  Thanks for compressing the program into ½ day and still making it so rich and valuable.  I especially enjoyed the exercises – interesting to see how people act in a new setting.” 

“This was a terrific start for us.  Got us to recognize some potential problem areas and ways to solve.  Great learning experience!”

“The workshop on the whole was excellent.  Speaking in front of people was great at confronting fears that everyone has, addressing them and conquering the.” 

“I came in thinking it was going to be useful, but limited but came away with feeling more confident about myself and the job I am going to do.” 

“I found it fun and kept my attention.  Very animated, friendly tone given by facilitator helps.”

A worshop for facilitators

Study Circles were developed in 1870 at Chautauqua Assembly in New York to provide higher education opportunities to people who didn't have access to college.

Today, Study Circles are widely used as a technique for small groups to examine an issue from many perspectives and to solve related problems. The process is aided by an impartial facilitator who creates a safe environment, manages expectations, models desired behaviors and keeps the discussion "on purpose.

This workshop trains those facilitators.

This workshop is designed to provide managers with the information and hands-on skills training they need ─ in only three to five hours of total training time ─ to facilitate Study Circles successfully.

The workshop uses coaching and training techniques that give participants an opportunity to interact with the information presented in ways that help drive it home. Subjects are covered, through presentations, games, competitions and other exercises.

For additional information or to schedule a workshop, please contact me.

Public Relations programs begin and end with research.

As this basic communication planning model demonstrates, public relations programs depend upon research for planning, monitoring and evaluating communication programs. (For an extended discussion of the current state-of-the-practice, please visit this entry in my blog.)

These are examples of research services I provide to my clients.

Secondary Studies

Secondary research involves examining the literature or other information sources such as news media reports or an organization's Twitter streams to answer specific questions.

Example: I have conducted news media analyses, for several clients, to answer specific management questions about relationships with certain media and reporters. For example, to convince one CEO who believed the leading industry-publication to be biased against the company, content analysis of media reports demonstrated that while the publication was rigidly unbiased in its reporting, "negative" material about the company was contained almost exclusively in the quoted commentary of equity analysts. This led to a program to improve analyst -- not media -- relationships.

Example: For a major bank planning a corporate re-engineering project, I answered key questions, through reviews of primary studies, such as: "What role does trust of management play in employee support of the company? How is support demonstrated by employees? What are the factors that contribute to job satisfaction? How is it measured? What are the behavioral components of "trust" and what specific management actions can be taken to improve trust and credibility?"

A communication program-planning workshop

This is an all-day, facilitated program to develop full-scale communication programs in issue-driven and urgent circumstances. (See the workshop description for details about this program.)

Example: A large healthcare company convened leaders of its industry from around the United States to plan the industry's collective response, through its professional association, to pending legislative and regulatory threats. The workshop resulted in engaging a professional search firm to identify a Washington-based PR/lobbying firm and a multi-million investment in a public affairs program to avert the threats.

Benchmark studies of best practices

Traditional benchmark studies of best practices combine primary-research techniques, such as in-depth interviews, site visits and surveys, and secondary-research techniques such as aliterature reviews.

Example: As part of its ongoing public accountability program, the hospital Association of Pennsylvania commissioned a study, Building Relationships with Community Opinion Leaders: Why, Who and How. The report drew on an annotated bibliography produced by a noted public relations academic and researcher, a self-administered survey of "benchmark partners" who were identified by prominent authors and other experts as representative of current "best practices," and in-depth interviews with CEOs and other senior officers of 13 member hospitals. The study was distributed to all of the member hospitals.

Example: A healthcare system commissioned a study, Best Practices: Organizing a Public Affairs Function as part of an effort to reorganize its in-house functions to place greater emphasis upon building relationships with legislators and regulators at the state and federal levels. The study report was based on in-depth interviews with the senior government relations officers of eight major health systems.

In-Depth Initerview-Based Reports

For a major urban university's school of business, I conducted an interview study among major employers in the school's region to determine employers' needs, expectations and reactions regarding a proposed change of the school's MBA program from "generic" to industry-specific.

Best practices white papers and issue briefings

Best practices research is often entirely based on secondary-research techniques, chiefly reviews of existing research and scholarship on a particular subject, and produced as a white paper.

Example: A major financial institution engaged us to consult with the executive steering committee that was responsible for conducting a re-engineering of a major subsidiary company. One product of this assignment was white paper about Best Practices in Employee Communication, which focused on preparing the steering committee for the challenges they would face in terms of employee morale and productivty when the re-engineering was completed.

Example: A large healthcare system commissioned a white paper, Hospital Price Transparency, to demonstrate current trends and impending legislations and regulation that is driving the need for healtghcare systems to provide comparative pricing information about their services.

Example: I conducted, analyzed, reported and presented best practices benchmark studies for a major bank (the use of technology in corporate communications functions) and a major industrial chemical manufaturer (the structure and organization of chemical company public affairs operations.)

Employee Opinion Polls

I have designed, conducted, reported and presented the results of full-scale employee surveys for three major corporations.

Public opinion polls

Public opinion polls employ scientific sampling methods to accurately portray the opinions of an entire population based on a selected sample of the population within a specified margin of error.

Example: A large healthcare system engaged me to conduct a poll that would measure the success of certain marketing programs and to learn more about factors leading to the selection of hospitals. The study was based on 2,847, 14-minute in-depth telephone interviews with adult residents, 35 years of age or older, living in five specific georaphic areas. The sample screened-out journalists, hospital employees or volunteers, physicians and hospital directors and trustees.

Example: I Conducted an "overnight" survey of 800 18+adults and 150 community leaders in a targeted state to guide the communication planning process for an acquisition bid made by a company after another takeover offer was already in play.

The Relationship Check-Up©

A Relationship Check-Up© is a proprietary method I developed for assessing the state of an organization's relationships with key internal and external constituent groups, whose expectations must be met to win their support for the goals and objectives of the organization.

Examples: I have conducted six Community Relationship Check-Ups for four teaching hospitals. The process involved in-depth interviews with community leaders, senior staff, physicians and board members; a series of employee focus groups; and audits of the institution's publications, advertising, collateral materials and publicity activities. I've also conducted "mini" Check-Ups with specialized audiences such as physicians and equity analysts for several clients.

Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the industrial revolution?

Watch this astounding video. Then, if your marketing and corporate reputation-management communication programs do not include a robust social media component, feel free to contact me to discuss how to fill that critical gap. Our services include setting up automated Twitter programs, using proprietary software.

My work with clients in crisis is conducted confidentially. Although I would like to share examples of my work, I'm confident you will appreciate that I cannot do so. However, several clients have been kind enough to offer their perspectives on my work with them during crisis situations. For example, Marcy Kelly, vice president, Sales and Marketing, for Wedgewood Pharmacy had this to say:

“We originally engaged David in 2003. Crisis communication was his specialty, and we were certainly in a crisis. He responded immediately, freeing himself up for a meeting the following day, and arriving at the meeting thoroughly prepared with a self-study understanding of the industry, and research in hand. He helped us think through our communication needs internally and externally, performed primary research with our customers on the issue at hand, and promptly developed talking points for employees and the media. The crisis at hand could have had a significantly negative impact on our financial performance at that time, and David's work helped to avert that outcome. As a result of that, and many other successful projects over the next few years, we engaged David on retainer. He has performed a "customer relationship check- up" that is impacting our strategy development, the planning and implementation of a media relations strategy, a public affairs engagement for our industry association, and frequent copywriting projects from our Wedgewood Guide to the voice over for our online tour. David is the ultimate planner. Everything has its place within the scheme of things. When he make plans, they are detailed, logical and progressive (A before B, then B before C, etc.) Before he takes action, he has thought out all the possibilities and then decided on the most probable action to take. He loves to anticipate problems. He checks and rechecks all of the details over and over before taking the first step in the plan of action. Solving problems is one of David's greatest joys. In business, David's bottom-line is dollars and cents. He is very resourceful with money and budgets. If given the right opportunity, he can stretch nickels and dimes into dollars by monitoring and planning the details of how money is acquired and spent. I highly recommend the work of David Kirk.”

As the result of developing urgent communication programs in situations ranging from unexpected executive resignations, hostile takeover attempts, tragic deaths, evacuations, chemical spills, faulty products and a variety of other threats to companies' reputations, I can say that certain factors are almost always present in corporate crisis situations. I believe, that the list below clearly distinguishes my understanding of and approach to clients in crisis.

Common mistakes in a crisis

Clients in crisis typically ...

• ... are driven to respond to executive ego damage rather than actual damage to the interests or reputation of the organization;
• ... greatly over-estimate the role that mass media play in creating or resolving the crisis situation;
• ... greatly under-estimate the role that opinion leaders play in resolving crises;
• ... are very likely to want to take actions that will extend the crisis, not resolve it;
• ... don't speak in a way that helps to resolve a crisis;
• ... are guided by fear of lawsuits rather than what they know is the right thing to do;
• ... have one, specific and very dangerous gap in their ability to manage a crisis effectively.

If I may be of service to you in a crisis situation in which effective communication with key constituencies is vital, please contact me in confidence.

theCrisisGuy is a service mark of thePRguy incorporated

Tricks?  Or relationships? 

There are essentially two approaches to presentation and media relations coaching.  The differences are profound:    Skills-based coaching works exclusively with behavioral modification techniques. This approach trains people to adopt behaviors that are fundamentally opposed to those required to present effectively. It emphasizes “tips and techniques” over building relationships.

This inevitably results in people who are stiffer and less comfortable speaking in public because they’ve learned “right” and “wrong” ways to do everything. Worse, they can only draw upon a limited “bag of tricks” as opposed to adapting their behaviors naturally to changing circumstances. You’ve undoubtedly heard many of these “tips and techniques:” don’t fold your arms, look over the audiences’ heads to manage nervousness, compliment a question, picture the audience naked and so forth.  Skills-based coaching alone simply doesn’t produce effective speakers.

Relationship-based coaching, which I offer, is designed to help each individual participant to become aware of and responsible for his or her own presentation and behaviors in order to help him or her to use their unique talents, presence, quirks and skills to build stronger relationships — the foundation of “effective speaking.” Within the context of relationship-based coaching, “tips and techniques” are used to develop each individual’s unique abilities to build stronger relationships and are never presented or intended as manipulations of an audience. This approach produces speakers who can adapt seamlessly and powerfully to changing circumstances.  

The Typical Process for Customized Coaching Services

I will structure a customized, individualized coaching program for your organization that includes these phases:

• Assessment
• Design
• Group session
• Individual video work and coaching
• Assessment
• Assessment

I use two tools to determine which of many potential elements to include in an initial group coaching session: 

• A self test designed to determine which of four competence/confidence levels applies to each participant.
• Individual interviews following the self-test to review the results of the self-test and to determine the specialized objectives, needs and wants of each participant. In part, in the individual interviews I’ll work with the results of the self-test by reviewing the likely implications of each person’s test score. 

Design/Group Session

During the approximate three-week design phase, I will use the information gathered from the self-assessment and individual interviews to develop a customized four- to six-hour group training session for the participants. I will design it to deliver relevant fundamentals that apply to all of the participants, to establish basic coaching and participant-support relationships and to introduce and practice common strategies that will be developed in individual coaching sessions. This session may use some of the modules I already have developed and/or entirely new modules I’ll develop for the purpose, based on a vast body of adult-education techniques, research data and other materials I have at my fingertips. 

Individual Video Work and Coaching

Following the group session, I generally conduct a minimum of two, two-to three-hour, one-on-one coaching sessions with each of the participants:
 
The first session uses videotaping, mirror work, mocks, simulations and other techniques to give each participant the opportunity to discover and work with strengths and weaknesses in relationship-based presentation skills.  The participants will be required to do some preparation for this session, chiefly developing simple practice materials. They also will be given specific “homework” assignments to prepare for the second session.

The second session will use similar techniques to validate each participant’s progress since completion of the first individual session and to work on any issues that are appropriate to each participant. Depending on the degree to which media relations issues are relevant to a participant, I will, at additional cost, add an exercise that employs a mock interview with a journalist. This session generally also includes a before/after video review.

Assessment

Each participant will complete an evaluation of the program and his or her progress, at the conclusion of the second session. The sponsoring executive(s), of course, receives a summary of these reviews to help evaluate the effectiveness of my work. These reviews also will include identifying areas in which each person would like to do additional work. At this stage, I will give you a report that will include, if any, additional plans to address the participants’ needs.

Personal Coaching Services for Public Relations Practitioners

 You're a public relations executive in need of a second opinion from a senior colleague on issues such as recruitment, department structures or staff development.

Or perhaps you're tackling an organization-threatening issue with tools, staff and resources more appropriate to marketing communication and publicity. Or you have a periodic need for specialized guidance in communication specialties such as research and evaluation, investor relations or crisis management.

Each year, I handle scores of short-term coaching requests from other public relations practitioners, from all sorts of organizations ranging from small not-for-profits to international corporations.

If you might benefit from a coaching session, please contact me for further information. If your coaching needs relate to the concerns of a sole practitioner, you may enjoy the article at the bottom this page, 15 Tips from a Veteran of Independence.

“Son,” my dad always said, “I can’t tell you in a few minutes what it’s taken me years to learn.” Dad never met the editor of PR Tactics. So with 28 years in our business, the last 10 in independent practice, here’s the pithy list of tips for independents for which he asked. My unique credentials? I’ve made every mistake.