Smart Public Affairs Practitioners are Tortoises

The tortoise and the hare fable is a pleasant story but in most cases it just doesn’t ring true. Hustling to create progress and change will usually result in getting there more quickly.

But sometimes slow really can mean fast.  

Evolution, not revolution

If you’re a company or organisation seeking to bring about substantial change – whether political, societal or corporate – gradual evolution is usually much more effective than revolution.

 Revolutionary change can fail for lots of reasons. The most cited one is that individuals who are ideologically and systematically resistant to change are in key decision-making roles. But an important, more nuanced reason, is that complex systems (like clinical trials, for example) have established and complicated supporting systems that are tried, tested and less risky than the unknown.

 Throwing the baby out with the bathwater sends alarm bells ringing. Better the devil you know, right?

Dry, but effective 

I’ve been involved in several ‘report launches’ ‘policy position announcements’ and similarly vacuously and dry sounding events organised around biscuits, coffee and name badges. But paradoxically, these are often far more influential than noisy campaigns.

 Their success lies in their apparent lack of success. Quietly and sensibly, those operating at the intersection of think tank-ery, trade associations and corporate lobbying wield enormous influence because they are often asking for small, incremental, pragmatic changes that seek to establish ‘proof of concept’ for their end objective. The serious thinking, calculating and mapping has been done ahead of time and so it becomes difficult to resist these calls in any rational way.

Patience is a virtue

This doesn’t just apply to lobbying and public affairs work, it applies equally well to PR campaigns too. When an organisation is seeking to shape perceptions of its brand – whether taking an unknown brand to fame, or transforming a toxic reputation into a respected one, change does not credibly happen overnight. Indeed, credibility is so valuable because you can’t ‘buy’ it with a PR campaign; it requires strategy, planning, creative execution and most of all, patience.

Publics, regardless of sector, are savvy consumers of information. They make judgements about an organisation’s agenda, reputation and credibility over time and based on a myriad of hundreds or thousands of ‘data’ points – or what might more simply be called ‘brand interactions’.

Reputation is an asset

Your relationship with the public is at the heart of public relations. You should treat it as an asset, whether you decide to codify that on a balance sheet as goodwill or just treat it as such in board discussions about brand and reputation management. It needs to be nurtured and tended to over a period of years, not blitzed in one PR campaign. Fundamentally and ethically, it needs to reflect reality – otherwise you really are throwing money away. Savvy brand consumers will cotton on eventually.

 If you’re prepared to play the long game, you can win big. Invest time and bring in people who can help you navigate complexity, risk and an evolving landscape.

Being the tortoise can sometimes be the best strategy.