Organisation-public relationships

Profit margins entail success! Building massive storey structures points to growth! Attracting investment reflects a high level of stability! Listing on the stock exchange is a majestic leap in business! Mergers and takeovers signal the beginning of dominance!

Every businessman and every corporate entity would smile if any of the above remarks were to be associated with them.

And if asked the reason for such business or corporate strides, many would retort — “it’s hard work or money or that it is in the blood or its about being connected”.

But it goes beyond that because running a business or running a corporate organisation is not about gambling at all.

It all depends on the matrixes of the organisation publics relationships. It all depends on the relationship management map of an organisation and its publics.

An organisation is not an island but operates within a society that bears a community, which constitute the various public and stakeholders that interact with it.

Yang (1992) notes that all human relationships in the society can be derived from one or a combination of five fundamental relationships of formalisation, reciprocity, harmony, fatalism and determination.

Which means every element of the society, including the corporate world, is affected by such relationship dimensions?

And for organisations to come up with their relationship management maps in the face of all these dimensions, they have no choice but to incorporate the practice of public relations to ensure success.

PR is the bedrock of organisation publics relationships because it defines, tabulates and ascertains the fitting relationship dimensions for each corporate player in the industry to be successful.

PR enriches the corporate world with hearty (intra-feelings) relationships to harness success.

The practice encourages organisations to focus on inner feelings that affect the everyday culture of a society.

These consist of issues of trust, civility, confidentiality, reliability, fairness, caring, openness and loyalty.

Organisations invest in these elements that touch the inner person to create lasting relationships with their publics that ultimately lead to success.

The Relationship Management Institute (RMI) argues that the hearty relationships are well explained in the statement “Our inner dialogue has an outer impact”. Therefore the inner organisational feelings have a very powerful outer impact.

John F. Kennedy (1968) said: “So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility (formal politeness and courtesy in behaviour or speech) is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.”

Thus, organisational inner feelings have an outer impact. Recently the Coca-Cola product used the hearty relationship dimension to endear itself to its customers and other publics by writing names of people on its cans and PET bottles.

For example, somebody called Tatenda will always enjoy and feel that Coca-Cola company knows that such a name and person exists when drinking a coke can inscribed Tatenda.

PR also defines co-operation relationship dimensions for the corporate world to be successful.

These dimensions stem from the organisation’s co-operation with its publics. They consist of the ability to have a culture of communication or dialogue, being able to act on issues (action), resourcefulness, confidence, openness, engagement and performance.

Co-operation is mostly influenced by the aspect of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) which searches the best in people, organisations and the world around them to find points of co-operation. Cooperrider and Whitney (2006) add that AI involves systematic discovery of what gives a system “life” when it is most effective and capable in economic, ecological and human terms.

This reminds us of the co-operation between Econet Wireless Zimbabwe and farmers in Zimbabwe as shown by the resourcefulness of a number of products developed by the mobile company like Eco-Farmer, among others.

Interrelationships dimensions have also been critical for many organisations in the industry. These are relationships revealed between various interrelations of the organisation and its publics. And with the influx of toxic media technology which sometimes wreak the sanity of interrelations with so many messages, corporate credibility has been questioned. And this is where PR becomes essential.

The interrelationships dimensions include inspiration, respect, appreciation, attention, truthfulness or reality, transparency, confidence, counselling, privacy, and being aware of public interest.

This is why most organisations are now using the celebrities as brand ambassadors because they inspire people.

For instance, ZINARA and the Traffic Safety Council have identified the Charambas and Red Cross identified Alick Macheso, respectively, as ambassadors.

PR also nurtures corporate relationships dimensions which are based on the corporate virtues of a corporate firm.

These focus on the attitudes and interest of an organisation derived from the set out expectations, for example, how does a corporate firm behave in different markets and environments — economically, socially and politically?

The practice of PR also cultivates relationship dimensions based on the collective intelligence of the organisation from an individual worker, groups and the corporate entity, at large. The personal assets of the individual shape the collective collateral of the group and the organisation, at large.

Corporate firms utilise the soft skills of their workers, groups and corporate branches to enhance the organisation in all facets.

While the above gives a tip of the ice-bag on how PR has grown to be massive in today’s organisational life, there are also relationship dimensions based on family and community virtues that go on to nurture the everyday operations of the corporate world.

In as much as one sees huge profits, massive storey buildings, heightened investment, holding companies and rising stock exchange figures; this is all as a result of organisational relationship management maps curved by the practice of public relations.

In this information age, there is no doubt that PR is the bedrock of organisation-public relationships and it is important for the industry to start adopting and incorporating PR into its system for sustainable and long-life success.