Your public relations professionals are your shock troops in making this work. They are already in the perception and behavior business, and can handle your data gathering activity, an essential component of your new opinion monitoring project. However, you should satisfy yourself that your PR staff really ac

And that almost always means doing something both positive and meaningful about the behaviors of those important outside audiences of yours whose behaviors MOST affect the departmental, divisional or subsidiary unit you manage.

This assumes, by the way, that you are a manager who needs and wants the kind of public relations effort that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives.

You can do this by persuading key outside folks of yours to your way of thinking by helping move them to take actions that help your department, group, division or subsidiary succeed. But it can only happen when you as a manager require more than tactics like special events, news releases and broadcast plugs. That’s when you’ll receive the quality public relations results you deserve.

The good news is that there’s a solid foundation under- pinning this approach to managerial public relations: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is usually accomplished.

More good news for managers lies in the kind of PR end-products that can come your way. For example, new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures start showing up; community leaders begin to seek you out; capital givers or specifying sources start to look your way; welcome bounces in show room visits occur; politicians and legislators begin looking at you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities; customers begin to make repeat purchases; and membership applications start to rise.

Your public relations professionals are your shock troops in making this work. They are already in the perception and behavior business, and can handle your data gathering activity, an essential component of your new opinion monitoring project. However, you should satisfy yourself that your PR staff really acc

This assumes, by the way, that you are a manager who needs and wants the kind of public relations effort that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives.

You can do this by persuading key outside folks of yours to your way of thinking by helping move them to take actions that help your department, group, division or subsidiary succeed. But it can only happen when you as a manager require more than tactics like special events, news releases and broadcast plugs. That’s when you’ll receive the quality public relations results you deserve.

The good news is that there’s a solid foundation under- pinning this approach to managerial public relations: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is usually accomplished.

More good news for managers lies in the kind of PR end-products that can come your way. For example, new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures start showing up; community leaders begin to seek you out; capital givers or specifying sources start to look your way; welcome bounces in show room visits occur; politicians and legislators begin looking at you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities; customers begin to make repeat purchases; and membership applications start to rise.

Your public relations professionals are your shock troops in making this work. They are already in the perception and behavior business, and can handle your data gathering activity, an essential component of your new opinion monitoring project. However, you should satisfy yourself that your PR staff really ac

The good news is that there’s a solid foundation under- pinning this approach to managerial public relations: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is usually accomplished.

More good news for managers lies in the kind of PR end-products that can come your way. For example, new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures start showing up; community leaders begin to seek you out; capital givers or specifying sources start to look your way; welcome bounces in show room visits occur; politicians and legislators begin looking at you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities; customers begin to make repeat purchases; and membership applications start to rise.

Your public relations professionals are your shock troops in making this work. They are already in the perception and behavior business, and can handle your data gathering activity, an essential component of your new opinion monitoring project. However, you should satisfy yourself that your PR staff really ac

More good news for managers lies in the kind of PR end-products that can come your way. For example, new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures start showing up; community leaders begin to seek you out; capital givers or specifying sources start to look your way; welcome bounces in show room visits occur; politicians and legislators begin looking at you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities; customers begin to make repeat purchases; and membership applications start to rise.

Your public relations professionals are your shock troops in making this work. They are already in the perception and behavior business, and can handle your data gathering activity, an essential component of your new opinion monitoring project. However, you should satisfy yourself that your PR staff really ac

Your public relations professionals are your shock troops in making this work. They are already in the perception and behavior business, and can handle your data gathering activity, an essential component of your new opinion monitoring project. However, you should satisfy yourself that your PR staff really accepts why it’s SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Essentially, be sure they truly believe that perceptions almost always result in behaviors that can help or hurt your operation.

Invest some time in going over your plans for monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Propose that the staff consider questions like these: how much do you know about our organization? Have you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with the exchange? Are you familiar with our services or products and employees? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?

By the way, hiring survey pros to handle the opinion gathering work, can result in costs exceeding the cost of using your own staff people. But whether it’s your people or a survey firm asking the questions, the objective remains the same: identify untruths, false assumptions, unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions and any other negative perception that might translate into hurtful behaviors.

As is always the case in administering programs, you need to establish a clearcut and realistic PR goal calling for action on the most serious problem areas you uncovered during your key audience perception monitoring. You may decide to straighten out that dangerous misconception, bring to an end that potentially painful rumor, or correct that gross inaccuracy.

As you might suspect, it will be necessary to connect your new goal to an action-oriented strategy that shows how to get to where you’re going. Actually, you have just three strategic options available to you when it comes to doing something about perception and opinion. Change existing perception, create perception where there may be none, or reinforce it. Needless to say, the wrong strategy pick will taste like