Day two of Counselors Academy opened with another round of Breakout sessions – small groups of 10 to 15 participants seated around a table for a discussion led by a senior practitioner or an expert advisor.

The first session I attended on “Preparing Your Future Leaders,” was led by Deb Radman, Managing Director of Stanton Communications and a former Chair of Counselors Academy. Darryl Salerno, the President of Second Quadrant, also offered much valuable insight. Darryl is the advisor Steve Cody credits with helping him to develop Peppercom‘s successful formula.

Most of the discussion participants agreed with Radman’s that all people are imbued with somesome leadership qualities. It is the responsiblity of current leaders to help young people to identify and develop the particular leadership qualities each of them possesses.

Of course, some people need more help than others to discover what they have that is special and will help them to lead a team or to run an agency.

Mid-size firms provide an opportunity for people to develop their leadership abilities. We’re in the leadership business: Our work is about helping articulate a vision, helping set goals, planning, researching, advising, persuading, and clarifying. That’s what leaders do.

We must stimulate the people who work for us to consider what kind of leader they might be and what they need to do to get there. Ask employees about who is an aspiring leader? Who do they perceive to be leaders? it’s very revealing.

• What leaders look like:
• They have bedrock values.
• They have the courage to be decisive.
• Consistent behaviour.
• They do what they say they’re going to do.
• They have the courage to be decisive.
• They enable collaboration by building trust.
• They create other leaders, not followers.
• They articulate a clear vision of where they’re going.
• They choose to lead.

To teach leadership, the people who you are trying to teach must perceive you to be a leader.
You must know what the people in your organization view as leadership qualities; then look at yourself to determine if you have the qualities to lead them, not just to manage them.

Radman emphasized that there is a tremendous difference between being a leader and a boss.

• Boss drives people; Leader motivates them.
• Boss depends on authority; Leader on persuasion.
• Boss uses fear; Leader uses positive reinforcement.
• Boss fixes the blame; Leader looks for a solution.
• Boss say “I”; Leader say “we.”
• Boss will tell people what to do; Leader will entice people to do something.

Leadership is a choice; you must inspire or persuade people to look inside themselves to determine what they want.

Tom Hoog, Senior Counselor to the Chairman of Hill and Knowlton got day one of Counselors Academy off to a good start with a refreshingly candid discussion of the key drivers of reputation management.

Hoog framed his issue at the outset: “Lack of trust is a growing problem in all the pillars of society. If we don’t strengthen trust, it will hamper our ability to move the economy and society forward.”

He cited a recent survey of students at 34 U.S. universities that discovered that only 39% would trust government to tell the truth, 22% would trust corporations and a mere 18% would trust the media to tell the truth.

He observed that, over the past eighteen months, we’ve seen several top PR agencies get themselves in trouble. Questioned about whether he believed that Fleishman Hillard’s reputation will be tarnished over several years as a result of the overbilling scandal in Los Angeles, Hoog responded that he expected it would “because all their competitors will use this against them.” He noted that, “It took Hill and Knowlton a full ten years to overcome the Kuwait incident.”

He noted a particular problem for public relations agencies, “In many cases, you are judged by who you represent. If you are representing someone who may be perceived as less than honourable, it will affect your own reputation.”

He added, “In the downturn, we did several things that hurt our reputations. We took business we shouldn’t have. We put junior people on it who didn’t do as good a job as they should have. And this hurt our industry’s reputation.”

His solution? According to Hoog, senior corporate executives must play a role in restoring and sustaining trust. “Executives must live the culture 24/7. … To do this, you must lead and develop your culture from your own value set. Then it is easy to live the brand and culture day in and day out. … [If you do otherwise], people will see you trying to be something that you are not.”

He underlined the importance of a strong, postive corporate culture, noting that senior executives do not have “the ability to keep an eye on everything that is going on. … The lowest person on the totem pole can destroy a reputation just as easily as the top person.”

Hoog also highlighted the problem faced by principals of small and medium-sized consulting firms. “When I was running my own small firm, I became the chief sales person and the top account executive and I did very little to run the firm. This was a terrible mistake. People did not know what I stood for. … It is important that principals in small firms focus on running the firm.”
He contrasted this with the approach that he took when he headed up Hill and Knowlton. At that time, the company had been losing revenue. A turnaround was required.

He started from a couple essential premises.

First, “Client turnover is directly related to staff turnover. A client hates having new people brought into accounts. He who minimizes staff turnover wins.”

Second, “How do you minimize staff turnover? Reputation.” He illustrated this with recent data from the Centre for Creative Leadership that indicates that the top four things on peoples’ list of they they want to work at a company are: number 1, “my thoughts, my opinons are valued;” number 2 “The company I work for is well thought of;” number 3: Career opportunities; and only at number 4, salary. He noted that the first three factors were tightly clustered with a separation of about five points from one to three. Salary trailed another five points behind these.

The solution Hill and Knowlton put in place reflected this understanding:

• “Our mission statement: We would grow through loyalty-based management.”Loyalty to clients “meant we would give clients ‘best teams’ regardless of geography.”

  H&K changed its bonus program for leaders of offices. “You had to demonstrate that you had given away 20% of the revenue from your office.”

• “Loyalty to employees meant we would provide them with a career path. We instituted a “two year up or out policy.”
• To support this, H&K introduced a new training program. Initially the training budget was 6% of total revenues. Once H&K stabilized, it dropped to 4%.
• “Each employee had to take 30 credit hours per year. If they didn’t take it, they would not be eligible for a raise or a promotion.”
• “We also put a serious mentoring program sytem into place.”
• “And a 360 degree review process. It was cumbersome, but it worked.”

All in all, an excellent session. Hoog’s principals and methods can be used by firms both large and small. And while small firms lack the total resources of a giant like Hill and Knowlton, astute managers can choose particular initiatives to introduce to work to improve their situation.

The essential underpinning to any of these measures is that they are firmly grounded in a culture that reflects the values of the leadership of the firm. With this in place, any subsequent measures will ring true with employees and clients alike.

Chris Clarke has posted about getting his first PR job. Straight out of school. With my firm, Thornley Fallis, a big-city PR agency.

In his post, Chris says:

I owe this opportunity to one thing and one person. The thing is blogging and new media. Without it, there is little else that sets me apart from the rest of the students in the field of PR in Toronto (or anywhere else in the world for that matter). The person is David Jones. He took a minute to read a comment I left on his blog many months ago, corresponded with me through email, agreed to speak to my program, volunteered to help our program organize a trip to visit a number of PR firms in Toronto, and was kind enough to invite me to Toronto for a sit-down meeting with him. David did more for me than most teachers I had this year in college, and I can say with total confidence that he’s taught me more than many of them, too. So David, thank you so much.

The thing that intimidates me the most about this little PR adventure is that there really is no blueprint to follow. I can’t point to any other successful bloggers who happen to also be students of public relations programs who have taken the big step into the agency world right out of college and succeeded (although I have a feeling I’m not alone in this thinking). That won’t deter me, though. It hadn’t occurred to me until just now, but I hope to be a model for future students who might someday be in the position I’m in right now. Hopefully, they can point to me and feel confident that they can do a good job too. It’s a big responsibility, though: my success will certainly be a deciding factor in hiring future bloggers at Thornley Fallis. It might be a deciding factor for other firms thinking of hiring PR students with blogs. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see (and make sure I don’t screw it up for the bloggers!)

Chris is right in his assessment of the important role played in his recruitment by David Jones (who showed the very best qualities of a senior PR practitioner in reaching out to students of PR and in doing so gave us all a standard to live up to) and Chris’ decision to blog.

What Chris may not remember is that he sent us his CV and applied for a position with our firm in February. At that time, his CV revealed him to be a university graduate who was rounding out his education with studies in public relations at Fanshawe College. He had been involved in a range of extracurricular and community service activities. A bright young student looking for a first job in his chosen field. One of the dozen qualified applicants we hear from each month.

But Chris didn’t stop there. He used his time in school to begin to pursue his passion for blogging. And he began to interact with established bloggers. Not just David Jones, but also many others including A listers like Joseph Jaffe.

So, Chris didn’t fade from our consciousness after we had reviewed his CV. Instead, he set himself apart from all of the other people who sent us CVs by distinguishing himself. We followed his blog. And when it came time for us to recruit a new staffer to work with us in our expanding social media practice, it was a no-brainer to call Chris.

But is this something new or exclusive to blogging? Not at all. Savvy young people have known for years that high grades and university degrees are not enough to land the best jobs after graduation. The very best people distinguish themselves by doing something out of the ordinary to make them remarkable to recruiters in their chosen profession.

For Chris, it was his student PR blog. Others I have hired over the years have distinguished themselves while students in a number of other ways: handling communications for a community cause; preparing a branding and marketing program for a student pub; being actively involved in a political leadership campaign (yes, politics can be an admirable thing, if engaged in for principled reasons) or: working as an intern in a newsroom or PR agency.

And in each case that I recall, the person didn’t just go through the motions to assemble CV credentials. They excelled in their extra activity, producing outstanding results and earning the respect of the people they worked with.

And that’s what Chris did. Student PR isn’t just a blog. It is a blog with thoughtful posts that probe the nature of best practices in the emerging social media.

In this Chris has truly established himself as a model for others.

We’re looking forward to his arrival at Thornley Fallis. There are no guarantees of success. But we’re hopeful that we can provide an environment where a promising young PR practitioner can and will excel.

Welcome aboard Chris!

David Jones is leaving Thornley Fallis. He has been recruited away from us by another firm that wants to upgrade their expertise in social media.

That’s a bummer for Thornley Fallis. David is a good friend and a very smart guy. We will miss him.

Dave, Terry Fallis and I have spent the past year exploring the possibilities of social media. We have learned by doing. We have learned a lot from one another. We have learned by meeting and talking to others who are on the leading edge of developing social media. 

And as we have exchanged views and learned from other practitioners of social media, our own profiles have been raised. We have come to ”know” and ”be known” to people we have never met in person. This really came home to me when I first approached a fellow blogger at a conference. As I was about to introduce myself, he said, “I know you. I’ve seen your picture on your blog and I read you all the time.” (Nice compliment; totally unexpected)

So, I should not be surprised that another firm has swooped in and made David an offer he could not refuse (It’s all positive; no severed horse heads involved.) In exploring and engaging in social media, David has raised his profile and engaged in conversations with respected bloggers and podcasters like Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Joseph Jaffe, Colin McKay and Robert French. He has acquired a positive reputation beyond our traditional geographic area of operation and, in our small world, an element of celebrity.

Our experience defines the new normal for PR practitioners who engage in social media. Every time a consulting firm like Thornley Fallis encourages its employees to share their experiences and smarts through a blog, we increase the likelihood that we will lose those people to other opportunities. David’s not the first blogger to be scooped up by a bigger firm. He follows a path that in the past six months has been well trod by other high profile bloggers like Jeremy Pepper and Steve Rubel.

So, will Thornley Fallis stop encouraging our consulting team to blog and explore social media? Heck no!

We’ll accept that this increased risk is just part of the entry fee to engage in social media. And we’ll understand that it’s better to spend a year learning and exploring with a guy like David Jones than it is to spend a decade of the safe same old, same old practise of techniques we long ago mastered.

For PR consultancies, it’s grow or die. And we must learn to grow. We will learn to deal with this aspect of blogging.

And after all, one of the great things of consulting is that we get to hire or join our friends. And Dave’s a good friend. So, you never know what the future may bring…

Dave, I and all the gang at Thornley Fallis wish you every success at your new gig!