There are disasters, and then there are disasters

Here is a list of the top 7 "PR disasters of 2011." Regular readers know I have some issues with the term "PR disaster" as I noted here and here and here, the latter being in reference to the Netflix fiasco, which made the top 7 list.

Certainly, each of the examples listed created negative publicity for the organizations and people involved, though publicity and public relations are not one in the same. But to label them PR disasters in some ways trivializes the poor decisions and improper actions of these organizations and their leaders.

To me, a public relations crisis is when your response to a problem, and in particular your communications strategy, makes the situation worse. Netflix is an example of a company with a PR crisis and a genuine crisis -- which I define as the failure of an organization to carry out its basic mission or fulfill its responsibilities to its stakeholders.

Technically, Penn State's response to the allegations of child sex abuse against Jerry Sandusky, and the alleged cover-up by other university officials, was a PR crisis under my definition, because the university's response made things worse. Yet the worst of what the university and its leaders did was not harming the institution's image -- a byproduct of their actions -- but failing to intervene to keep more children from being victimized.

Remember, public relations is not merely about boosting the image of your organization. It is about counseling leadership to make decisions that are in the best interest of both the organization and the public, and figuring out how to reconcile these interests when they are in conflict. We all remember the foot-in-mouth disease suffered by BP CEO Tony Hayward during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. His insensitive comments made a bad situation worse. But the real problem was the millions of gallons of oil floating in the ocean, and all the kind words in the world weren't going to make that go away.

Damnit Jim, I'm a PR guy, not a magician

This Financial Times blog post about Blackberry's service disruption leads me to create a definition for the term "public relations crisis": any screw-up that you can't talk your way out of. How many times have I said it? You can't communicate your way out of a situation you behaved your way into. (Actually, my boss said it, and she tells me she's quoting Pat Jackson.) In my own words, the best public relations is a well-run organization, which means that even the most skilled PR practicioner can't rescue an organization from its own bad decisions.

That's not to undervalue the role of crisis management and crisis communication. It certainly is possible to make a bad situation worse by communicating poorly. (I'm looking at you, Netflix.) No one would have cared that BP had an arrogant and condescending CEO if they hadn't dumped a ton of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Which isn't to say that every crisis is an organization's fault -- take, for example, the famous case of the poisoning of Tylenol, considered a textbook example of effective crisis management. It's not what parent company Johnson & Johnson said that is remembered; it's what they did -- removing Tylenol from the shelves in the interest of public safety, regardless of the cause or scope of the problem.

This doesn't argue against giving public relations its coveted and elusive "seat at the table." In fact, it's evidence that an organization's senior leadership needs to include public relations staff, whose proper role is to reconcile the interests of the organization with the interests of its various publics. In short, to prod the organization to do right when its instincts tell it to do wrong.