Nick Andrews

My Fleishman Hillard colleague in Brussels, Nick Andrews, has a nice rumination on the desire for many companies to be left alone.  He notes that companies in the throws of some public affairs crisis pine for the indifference of government for what they do.  He brilliantly describes the mindset:

Broadly, this depends on a line of argument which goes something like this. “We’re really important to the (normally global) economy. You don’t really understand what we do because you’re not technical like us. We’re quite capable of self-regulating. We’re really very responsible (no, really). Best to leave us alone.” Whilst I totally understand the attraction of this approach, I have one small issue with it. I’ve never seen it work. Ever.

I am very familiar with this attitude and I agree with Nick that it is utterly self-defeating.  But I do think he underestimates the path from this attitude to ultimate success in the way a company conducts its public affairs program.

The challenge is always to look beyond the immediate crisis, to the positioning opportunity. A positive, solution-oriented, industry-leading point of view, stated passionately, widely and consistently, can only stand organisations in good stead. It puts their opponents on the back foot and shapes the debate. It raises morale internally and galvanizes the sector. After all, they might as well. The one thing we can say with certainty is that they won’t be left alone.

As usual, Nick’s guidance is spot on and companies would be wise to take it.  But I’m reminded of the scene from beginning of Peter Pan when Peter is trying to help the children to fly.  As long as they were simply following Peter’s instructions, they were unsuccessful.  It was only when the “truly believed” that they were lifted off the ground.

So it is with a successful corporate public affairs program.  If it is done because it is something “you have to do” to keep the government at bay or even if it is done because Nick Andrews said so, it will fail in the end.  It is only when a company appreciates the fact that, in the current policy and political environment, companies have responsibilities greater than to provide jobs for their employees, ROI for investors or even good value for customers.  In fact, the broader public now holds companies accountable for larger social goals, like sustainability or humane treatment of their stakeholders, very broadly defined.  It is only when companies embrace these values will they achieve their proper role in society.   Like it or not, corporate leaders are put in the same pot as government leaders.  The general public believes all such elites have failed them in their obsessive search for power or money.  The burden falls on all societal leaders to demonstrate their commitment to the greater good.

And, if they do it right, they might even, in the end, be left alone by government.  Thank so?

Nah!

Financial Times, 1:27pm Thursday November 24th, 2011
Germany is the real winner in a transfer union
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By Sebastian Mallaby
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Ireland and Spain suffered property and banking busts at least partly because monetary policy was too German, writes Sebastian Mallaby.

You would expect that this catastrophic failure of free market capitalism would provide fodder for the left critique of conservative economic policies.  Instead, voters all over the world seem to be moving further to the left?  How could that be?

In today’s Financial Times, John Lloyd takes a crack at an explanation.  He believes that parties on the left are, in fact, gaining support.  But it is the center left that is being punished.  He suggests that, because the center left supports free market capitalism, but only seeks a more humane version, it is implicated in the economic collapse.  Moreover, he posits that the center left parties are victims of their own success.  Much of their non-economic agenda has been adopted by the right, so there’s nothing to fight about.  As he puts it:

The great causes – race, women’s and homosexual equality, community involvement, the spread of democratic practice – which had been significantly dominated by the left, are now largely uncontroversial on the western European right, except on its fringes and in parts of Italy’s governing coalition.

Clearly, the political consequences of the economic crisis will play out over months, if not years.  But, just as the collapse itself was unexpected, so too are the political reverberations.

That was then.  Public affairs advocacy has gone global in a big, big way.  Issues are global.  See climate change, financial services, food safety, etc., etc., etc.  And new media is transforming communications and is very much a global phenomenon, it is critical that strategies, tactics and messages be consistent all over the world for companies and NGOs that cross borders.  No more can public affairs advocates say one thing in South America and something else in Russia.

This blog is  designed to examine the ways in which public affairs is practice at the international level.  By examining how issues erupt and are dealt with, either well or not so well, I hope to build a record of what to do and what not do in the public affairs arena.

Welcome to the World of Public Affairs blog.  I hope you’ll come back.