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Essentials of Public Relations Management
Public Relations Review 30 (2004) 235–241
Book reviews Essentials of Public Relations Management Edward J. Lordan, Burnham Inc. Publishers, Chicago, 2003, 177 pp., paper, $ 24.95 “A wise man learns from his mistakes . . . but a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others.” This is a fitting proverb that Edward Lordan quotes (p. 161) in his book, for Essentials of Public Relations Management is the work of an author who is well acquainted with the many infelicities by which public relations is practiced. From his perch at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, where as an assistant professor of communications studies he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in public relations, Lordan has compiled a text that should find a niche for itself in the PR literature. He does not offer a guidebook on how to do PR but one on how to manage PR. A big difference. His skillfully presented advisory is designed to help practitioners make the leap into management—i.e. be managers of PR departments, which is a worthy objective in itself, and even to go after bigger game, which would be that elusive seat by the CEO’s side. The book is organized into eight succinct chapters, each devoted to getting one’s arms around what he terms the “theory, techniques, and priorities” of managing a specific aspect of PR operations (p. x). Since without clients there is no public relations to practice, a chapter on client relations rightfully kicks things off. “The value of public relations is usually more subjective than the value of other goods and services,” Lordan observes (p. 1), adding: At the end of the month, when a client reviews his accounts, he will pick up his first invoice and note that one supplier has billed him for Y dollars and has provided him with X widgets—physical goods that he can see in his plant. He will pick up a second invoice, a bill for public relations services, and he will look around and see . . . what? What, indeed? One certainly has to know how to finesse that bit of puzzlement to build and manage a thriving PR practice. This chapter offers pointers on how managers “must educate as they sell,” must manage client expectations, and must be a strategic contributor to the client’s business and marketing plans. The following chapters address similar flashpoints of prowess in managing personnel, research, crisis communications, finance, technology (offering “the greatest challenge and opportunity in public relations management today,” avers Lordan (p. 81)), legal issues, and ethics. With 35 pages, the chapter on legal issues is the lengthiest. Granted, we are in an era marked by a ravenous appetite for litigation; yet this chapter seems misaligned with its companion briefings. A discussion of how the mind-sets and professional strategies of the client’s legal counselor and PR adviser differ devolves into a primer on defamation, copyright, trademarks, right of privacy, and other elements of communications law. Useful yes, but a dead weight in a book that is aimed at higher managerial ground. A fuller length focus on relationship building between the legal department and the PR department would have been more in tune with the objectives of the making of a PR manager. 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
236
Book reviews
That’s just a minor misstep. Lordan more than compensates by seeding throughout the book 35 sidebar passages that add a best-practices dimension to his own practicum. The sidebars are largely drawn from Public Relations Tactics, and to have such a collection of excerpts from the publication’s past notable articles is a bonus for the reader of Essentials. How inspiring, for example, to be exposed anew to Jean Farinelli’s September 1996 article, “Tips for Agency-Client Relations,” which includes this gem (p. 9): Be Unique: Develop a PR operating style that gets your clients excited to see you when you arrive at their office. Boggle their minds with ideas. Stimulate their thinking. Set yourself and your work apart from their everyday routine. Lordan also demonstrates good judgment and service to the reader by including as the penultimate sidebar the “PRSA Code of Ethics and Ethics Pledge” (p. 148). In this day of ethically challenged organizational leadership, any would-be manager should have the PRSA Code for ready reading on his or her bookshelf. He scoffs at the notion that “public relations is not perceived to have sufficient gravitas to justify a management position” (p. x). Scoffing is one thing; showing the talented doers of PR how to move into a management role is another. Lordan shows how it can be done. Essentials is a book that I have drawn upon for class instruction in a PR course that I teach, and one that deserves consideration as a new tool to elevate the level of talent within the public relations profession. James Kristie Directors & Boards, 1845 Walnut Street Suite 900, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Kristie) 7 January 2004 doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2004.02.007
Public Relations Cases Jerry A. Hendrix, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, Belmont, CA, 2004, 446 pp., paper, $ 66.95 Although occasional cases appear in the pages of undergraduate public relations textbooks, few (with the exception of Fearn-Bank’s Crisis Communication) take a casebook approach to the subject. Recently released in its sixth edition, Public Relations Cases continues to demonstrate Hendrix’s long-held philosophy that effective public relations consists of interactive participation between organizations and their audiences. In Part I, Hendrix offers a short introduction to his organization/audience interplay perspective; he also briefly dips into ethical considerations (including the latest Public Relations Society of America Code of Ethics as an appendix), which deserves far more attention than the mere two and one-half pages he devotes to the topic. Hendrix then launches his process model (Research, Objectives, Programming, Evaluation—ROPE), providing a framework for the text’s remaining chapters. Although the model contains similar elements to those developed by other practitioners and scholars, ROPE displays both useful and questionable emphases. Laudable is the acronym’s clear underscoring of objec-
Book reviews Essentials of Public Relations Management Edward J. Lordan, Burnham Inc. Publishers, Chicago, 2003, 177 pp., paper, $ 24.95 “A wise man learns from his mistakes . . . but a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others.” This is a fitting proverb that Edward Lordan quotes (p. 161) in his book, for Essentials of Public Relations Management is the work of an author who is well acquainted with the many infelicities by which public relations is practiced. From his perch at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, where as an assistant professor of communications studies he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in public relations, Lordan has compiled a text that should find a niche for itself in the PR literature. He does not offer a guidebook on how to do PR but one on how to manage PR. A big difference. His skillfully presented advisory is designed to help practitioners make the leap into management—i.e. be managers of PR departments, which is a worthy objective in itself, and even to go after bigger game, which would be that elusive seat by the CEO’s side. The book is organized into eight succinct chapters, each devoted to getting one’s arms around what he terms the “theory, techniques, and priorities” of managing a specific aspect of PR operations (p. x). Since without clients there is no public relations to practice, a chapter on client relations rightfully kicks things off. “The value of public relations is usually more subjective than the value of other goods and services,” Lordan observes (p. 1), adding: At the end of the month, when a client reviews his accounts, he will pick up his first invoice and note that one supplier has billed him for Y dollars and has provided him with X widgets—physical goods that he can see in his plant. He will pick up a second invoice, a bill for public relations services, and he will look around and see . . . what? What, indeed? One certainly has to know how to finesse that bit of puzzlement to build and manage a thriving PR practice. This chapter offers pointers on how managers “must educate as they sell,” must manage client expectations, and must be a strategic contributor to the client’s business and marketing plans. The following chapters address similar flashpoints of prowess in managing personnel, research, crisis communications, finance, technology (offering “the greatest challenge and opportunity in public relations management today,” avers Lordan (p. 81)), legal issues, and ethics. With 35 pages, the chapter on legal issues is the lengthiest. Granted, we are in an era marked by a ravenous appetite for litigation; yet this chapter seems misaligned with its companion briefings. A discussion of how the mind-sets and professional strategies of the client’s legal counselor and PR adviser differ devolves into a primer on defamation, copyright, trademarks, right of privacy, and other elements of communications law. Useful yes, but a dead weight in a book that is aimed at higher managerial ground. A fuller length focus on relationship building between the legal department and the PR department would have been more in tune with the objectives of the making of a PR manager. 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
236
Book reviews
That’s just a minor misstep. Lordan more than compensates by seeding throughout the book 35 sidebar passages that add a best-practices dimension to his own practicum. The sidebars are largely drawn from Public Relations Tactics, and to have such a collection of excerpts from the publication’s past notable articles is a bonus for the reader of Essentials. How inspiring, for example, to be exposed anew to Jean Farinelli’s September 1996 article, “Tips for Agency-Client Relations,” which includes this gem (p. 9): Be Unique: Develop a PR operating style that gets your clients excited to see you when you arrive at their office. Boggle their minds with ideas. Stimulate their thinking. Set yourself and your work apart from their everyday routine. Lordan also demonstrates good judgment and service to the reader by including as the penultimate sidebar the “PRSA Code of Ethics and Ethics Pledge” (p. 148). In this day of ethically challenged organizational leadership, any would-be manager should have the PRSA Code for ready reading on his or her bookshelf. He scoffs at the notion that “public relations is not perceived to have sufficient gravitas to justify a management position” (p. x). Scoffing is one thing; showing the talented doers of PR how to move into a management role is another. Lordan shows how it can be done. Essentials is a book that I have drawn upon for class instruction in a PR course that I teach, and one that deserves consideration as a new tool to elevate the level of talent within the public relations profession. James Kristie Directors & Boards, 1845 Walnut Street Suite 900, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Kristie) 7 January 2004 doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2004.02.007
Public Relations Cases Jerry A. Hendrix, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, Belmont, CA, 2004, 446 pp., paper, $ 66.95 Although occasional cases appear in the pages of undergraduate public relations textbooks, few (with the exception of Fearn-Bank’s Crisis Communication) take a casebook approach to the subject. Recently released in its sixth edition, Public Relations Cases continues to demonstrate Hendrix’s long-held philosophy that effective public relations consists of interactive participation between organizations and their audiences. In Part I, Hendrix offers a short introduction to his organization/audience interplay perspective; he also briefly dips into ethical considerations (including the latest Public Relations Society of America Code of Ethics as an appendix), which deserves far more attention than the mere two and one-half pages he devotes to the topic. Hendrix then launches his process model (Research, Objectives, Programming, Evaluation—ROPE), providing a framework for the text’s remaining chapters. Although the model contains similar elements to those developed by other practitioners and scholars, ROPE displays both useful and questionable emphases. Laudable is the acronym’s clear underscoring of objec-