"Riding Point"

Tim Traverse-Healy
Director, Traverse Healy, Ltd., London
September, 16, 1990

To download a printable version of this speech, click here.

Howard Chase will recall I was the first foreigner to be invited to address the Public Relations Society of America in that City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, years ago in 1955.

My admired colleague and personal friend, Howard, was then my chairman. Ironically, he stood before me on this spot at this podium to be similarly honored by you last year. I am encouraged that he seems to have survived the ordeal, and indeed he followed John Page, Allen Center, Scott and Hale Nelson, all legends in their time, names that inspire. An occasion on which I felt equally humbled was when, as a guest, visited the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., and had to walk down a long corridor with the photographs of a legion of U. S. Nobel Prize winner members on the right hand wall, and a phalanx of U.S. Pulitzer Prize winner members on the left.

Today, I am the first foreigner to be elected to your Hall of Fame, and to be invited to deliver a presumably thoughtful and meaningful lecture. I cannot express strongly and clearly enough how touched, how moved, how honored I am by your Society's, -in my view -questionable decision.

For, of course, the Arthur W. Page Society is recognized internationally for its prestigious position in the professional picture frame. It is looked to for the pole position it adopts in pursuit of professional excellence.

Frankly, I can think of no other professional honor that would prize me away on this particular weekend from my home in Sud-Ouest, France. For this weekend signals the start of the "vendage"-the bringing in of the wine harvest, the gathering of the grapes. And all the signs are that it will be a good, if not notable year!

But today, for me, because of you -my friends and colleagues - this is also a "vendage," a harvest. You have made this my vintage year. And I am grateful.

One of the proudest, sometimes most courageous assignments a soldier can be called upon to perform is "riding or marching point": lonely, way in advance, right at the head of his comrades-in-arms as they move towards their objective.

It should be noted that equally vulnerable and invariably expendable is the man - "Tail End Charlie" - assigned to bringing up the rear.
"Riding Point" A Pivotal Moment

But for the man "riding point," it is the moment when a private soldier feels like, and indeed can act like, a four-star general! His reading of the sign; his immediate sizing up of the situation and the deployment of opposing and friendly forces; the accuracy, content and clarity of the message he sends back; these can change the course of events, ensure success, or cause the failure of the mission.

I suggest to you that in the circles of endeavor and enterprise within which we operate, we are the scouts, the advance guard, the "riders of the point." Private soldiers all, we too have to act and think like generals. We have to see that our messages, ungarbled, do get back to base. It is a proud position, one of trust, of responsibility, of action, of integrity, and personal courage. It is not an assignment to be handed out to amateurs and rookies. Rather it is for the battle-trained and tested.

I realize that in the face of an audience of this eminence, it could be risky, if not considered pompous and pretentious, for me to sound-off. But, I felt I should just share with you the signs I see and the message I am sending back to my "generals."
Three "Forces" to Contend With

In my observation, three interrelated forces have been at work over the post World War II period and will continue to have an impact on our work. I label them: The Disclosure Movement, The Interdependence Theory and The Balance Philosophy of Management. Let me explain.

Since the early fifties, right up to the present, the information debate has raged. It used to be that, "information is power, so I want it. Not only do I want it for myself, but I always reply 'no comment' to anyone who demands it of me."

But then the debate moved on. It became, "to be deprived of information is to be deprived of a political or indeed a civil right." Freedom of expression, of speech, of information became enshrined in many of the constitutions at international and national levels.

Politicians began to back the information expectations of the public. The establishment's reasons for not giving information (confidentiality, client sensitivity, competitive information, cost) were even pre-empted in published rules and regulations. The law in various countries, and to varying degrees, began to dictate what had to be said about what and to whom, to the point where a businessman's decision to disclose some item of corporate information became, frankly, academic, if not illusionary. Pressure groups, data bases, investigative journalists, government inquiries, policy study units, mission statements, codes of conduct, Ombudsmen, voluntary controls, are all pieces on the same "disclosure" carousel.

But today, the debate has moved on to read that, "if the public has a right to information, then the people should have a corresponding right to respond." If the people are able to know, then they should be able to talk back, and they should be granted adequate facilities and resources to do so.

"Disclosure," then, is my first force. The second is the "Interdependence Theory." Quite simply, this is the present recognition that what John Donne wrote all those years ago, "no man is an island," is true. What one person, one company, one country, one trading bloc does, affects others. In this day and age, it is complex, indeed a professional job, working out, pre-thinking, the social impact of an institution's actions upon others on a domestic and international level. What has become important is that a company is able to demonstrate that it has tried to appreciate and to accommodate the impact of its plans, its programs and its actions upon others.

So much for "Interdependence." My third force I call the "Balance Philosophy of Management." If asked to give his objectives, the immediate post-war chairman would probably have answered make profits and to make a good return for the owners and the shareholders." Chances are that today the modern CEO would answer the same question cryptically: "to survive." Or more expansively, "to provide a return for shareholders; security and future for the employees, and a good product or service at a fair price for the customers." If prompted, some might go on to add, "to grow; to be sensitive of the community; to be a good citizen; to be socially responsible."

The point is that, increasingly, it is becoming accepted by modern management that its prime task is to attempt to balance the drive for profits and commercial success on the one side of the seesaw, against corporate concern for public policies on the other.
Other "Bottom-Lines" Emerge

The pursuit of profits will not cease. However, the myth that profit is the sole aim of an enterprise will become more widely evident and profits will have a chance of attainment only where the enterprise also possesses an acceptable public policy.

It follows that a corporation needs to be recognized as a concern that does attempt the probably impossible. That it does try to balance the often conflicting interests of the various members of its immediate constituency, its family, its stakeholders - call them what you will.

So,it is my belief that these three forces, "Disclosure," "Interdependence," and "Balance" have been at work, and the successful corporation has learned and is continuing to learn how to live in the changing social environment they have created.

But, I have my vision of what will happen over the next decade in the area of corporate public relations taking us into the Millennium.
Preview of Tomorrow The "Era of the Person"

The forecasters - some prefer to be called futurologists - differ in varying respects as to what the new century holds for us. But in my reading, the one thing they all seem to agree about is that a paradigm shift, a movement of monumental proportions, in public attitudes towards human values is underway. This new dawn has been dubbed: "The Age of the Individual." It is the nature of the response of industry and commerce to this groundswell, and our role as professionals in the emerging scheme of things, that prompts me to make the title of my talk "Riding Point." For the focus of power in the coming decade will swing away from institutions towards individuals; individuals who can use information technology and will create networks to influence action. I suggest that knowing who these individuals are, and how these networks operate is a professional job. Ours. We are the scouts. We are on "point" duty.

I would be the first to admit that some concerns have already recognized these signs and their implications. But I would submit that most have not recognized that, just as today there is no such prototype as the "customer" (and market segmentation is, therefore, the name of the game); so, too, the "general public" is a mythical animal, a figment perhaps, of the imagination of the Editor of USA Today. For the public is made up of a series of overlapping, interlocking minorities which incorporate individuals, all together making up the fabric of our society.

Providing for the needs, addressing the greater or lesser expectations, and matching the values of these individuals is the challenge facing business. Any attempt to respond by mass communications alone could well prove a delusion and a snare because factors other than product price and performance will increasingly determine brand and corporate loyalties amongst this fast-growing mass of critical customers. Customers are now articulate enough to influence others within their media-expanded domain. Although by the end of this decade there will be a plethora of TV channels, worldwide, to choose from, actions will nevertheless speak louder than "sound bytes."

Corporate social attributes, "familiarity" breeding "favourability," stakeholders loyalties, and the importance of shared values, will grow. I do not find it in anyway surprising that the accountants are wrangling over how to treat good will and the value of brands on the balance sheet. (At least in the U.K., where it has been a rather loose playing field.) Auditors and commentators in my country are in a huddle as to how to put a price on corporate reputation. More significantly, how to quantify loss of reputation resulting from corporate action, inaction or reaction.

I am not surprised that the lawyers are beginning to discuss legal actions, and the setting of damages and compensation for what has been described as "Corporate Manslaughter" - (a term used to describe situations wherein corporate libel, calumny, and detraction have affected, even destroyed, companies.) Although I am concerned, I am not surprised that the shareholders want to take a strong hand in calling the management shots.

Even if one only marginally accepts my proposition that the values, the publicly perceived values, of an institution will become an increasingly critical factor impacting its opportunity to operate successfully over the coming years, then I must outline what I mean by "values" in this context.
Value Added: Reality Versus Rhetoric

Corporate values are usually expressed in human terms: fair, honest, truthful, sensitive, responsive, caring, good citizen. In the post-war period, company managements and their publicity advisors recognized that it made good sense to promulgate, promote, present and portray the often impersonal organization in emotive terms and their often faceless management in a warm rather than a grey light.

Corporate advertising and social sponsorship responsibility programs are obvious manifestations of this exercise. But, essentially, this is an institution communicating at, not with, and certainly not between itself and its publics. Although admittedly, in the way the information gap was closed, and the chances of "familiarity" leading to "favourability" increased, only a limited amount of success could be achieved. The vital credibility levels, which depend on other factors, remained substantially unaffected.

Mort Sahl, the comedian, once remarked, "proximity ain't relating." The new generation of the new decade is skeptical, socially critical, politically aware and will certainly demand real relationships. The hidden persuaders, if they ever existed, will find no place to hide; for perceptions necessarily based, as they are, on what a company says about itself, and others say about it, will increasingly be determined not by publicity, but by actions endorsed by peer groups, through personal and reported experience, and by mutually agreed activity and unfettered aid.

Credibility will depend on corporate accountability. Accessibility and responsibility will arrive only when business plans and actions line up to the fine words in mission statements. The laurels will go to the leaders in this movement.

A couple of years ago, endeavoring to study the matter of corporate credibility, I carried out an extensive review into the comparative values implicit in the terms "propaganda," "publicity" and "public relations." I reached the conclusion that propaganda, and publicity (and indeed information practice) in themselves are not necessarily anti-social; quite contrary. They can and do serve a genuine social purpose - propaganda in the pejorative sense of the term, is not necessarily evil, if in a particular society adequate counter propaganda facilities and activities exist.

But the essential ingredients that distinguishes public relations practice, on the one hand, from either propaganda or publicity on the other, are in my view threefold: The presence of truth, demonstrable concern for the public interest, and existence of a genuine ongoing dialogue between the institution and its particular constituency, stakeholders, or publics. Genuine dialogue presupposes that the organization concerned is prepared to modify its policies and its practices in the light of such dialogue.

Professor Grunig of Maryland University and one of his colleagues were involved in a research project which established that only some 15 percent of those claiming to be practicing public relations were in fact engaged in true dialogue. Currently, I am attempting to quantify the situation in the United Kingdom.

Preliminary research does not lead me to believe that the situation is any different over there. But it will certainly have to be in the "Age of the Individual," if business is to maintain its popular mandate and companies their markets.
Open the "Semantic Curtain" NOW!

Businessmen know that all the political and social issues over the coming decade - health, environment, education, transport, and communications - have implications for industry and commerce. But the real difference is that in this coming decade, the public in general will want to know where business stands on such issues. Where does your company stand? Where do you stand? Why? The increasing pace of life and the life cycle of issues will accelerate. The public will look to those in our society who expect to be treated like leaders to act like leaders. Those that do not will get short shrift.

Globalization-a topic isolated by the Page Society for priority consideration - will affect even the smaller firms. Competition will drive most commercial decisions. Company restructuring and down-sizing will create tensions. Changes in the work place, recruitment problems, the emergence of women, the aging population, all these issues and scores of others will bring their attendant concerns. Whatever political groups are in power, in whatever country, there will be increased public frustration amounting to even distrust of government, and worrying disillusions when those changes do not bring instant results for the better. Like the phenomena we are presently witnessing in Europe.

It will not be possible for corporations to stand aloof from public debate. Indeed, the sophisticated community activists of the next decade will consciously seek the aid and maneuver the involvement of business in the process of changing public policy.

That most important factor, "credibility," will depend on the extent of genuine dialogue that has been developed within the corporate "family" over a period of time. Of course, publicity, advertising, and promotion for products and services will continue. But such activities will need to be supplemented by planned and sustained information and educational programs; by public, customer, shareholder, and employee consultation and participation in the actual corporate decision making process.

The axiom will be - information not publicity is the currency of contact and controversy - the price the company has to pay to achieve dialogue.
Inter-active Communications

Many methods of achieving and maintaining contacts exist and with the explosive development of information technology, many more aids to dialogue will be available. All that is needed is the will, the culture, and the commitment of top management. Print, presentations, audio/visual aids, closed-circuit television and similar one-way communication techniques are presently in common usage. Opinion research has been put to work to determine the content, the parameters, and the effectiveness of inter-group communications. But research in the future will be employed primarily to provide the raw material for feedback and the information base necessary to the establishment of two-way flow. For the emphasis of communications will switch to permit those there to contact and respond directly to those in-house.

Sophisticated and targeted mailings will inevitably include simple reply-paid material. Advertisements will incorporate coupons and free-phone facilities. Phone-ins and teleconferencing using satellite will embrace customers, shareholders and employees. Fax machines, answering machines, home computers, paging and mobiles will all be employed in the move towards one-on-one corporate representative-individual member of the public contact.

The forthcoming "Age of the Individual" will kill off the old complaint departments. The public relations and customer relations team will take its place and corporate accountability will become an everyday practice, albeit employing sophisticated databases. A company will see nothing unusual in being quizzed and in responding fully and quickly on matters such as its employment record and practices; its environmental policies; its financial arrangements; its performance; the quality of its products; the safety of its product and the effectiveness of its services. Discussion and debate will be encouraged, rather than feared; sought rather than avoided. One measure of a corporation's social acceptance will be the professionalism of its two-way communications and the degree of genuine dialogue it encourages and entertains.

These are the messages I am sending back to my "generals," my "masters," and indeed, my students.

* * * * * *

Members of the Page Society are expected to uphold the "Page Principles." On a personal level, disciples should display at all times - the book says - calmness, patience, and good humor. Whilst both my wife and my secretary might question it, obviously the members have no doubts that in these respects at least I qualify to join their ranks.

I trust, however, that after hearing what I feel about the remaining Page Principles, regarding truth, action, management and responsibility, that they still feel that I am fit to carry Arthur Page's torch publicly for a year at least.

I first met Arthur in New York in the mid-fifties. The statement of his that impressed me then and continues to do so now went as follows:

"Management must know what the public thinks and business needs frankness in telling the public about its operations in the public interest ...it should and willingly tell the public what its policies are, what it is doing and what it hopes to do. This seems practically a duty."

Having met and talked with the man, having read much of what he wrote, spoken to his contemporaries, and discussed his thinking with a number of respected colleagues, some in this room this evening, I suggest that the letters of his name Page - P.A.G.E. - provide the key to his personal and professional impact.

P - He developed a clear philosophy, he possessed and expressed his principles, he was concerned with the public interest and policies. He performed and he recognized the need for practitioners to have the power to act.

A - He gave sound advice backed up with action.

G - He was gentle; a gentleman; he was generous; I believe a genius; and he had guts.

E - He was economical in thought and deed; in all his endeavors, he was effective, energetic and enterprising; a provider of encouragement to the less experienced and to the young aspirant.

Some years ago, your new president, Larry Foster, said to me, "The true professionals know who they are and they should not be required to alibi for others who can not attain this status."

Arthur Page's legacy to us in trust was his example as a true professional. This society is his ongoing obituary. We know he was a professional and I know - as Larry indicated - when I am amongst my peers.

This is a night I will always remember, a memory I will treasure. Thank you for inviting me to be with you, to share your company, to be truly one of you.