Adaptation—The New Mission Critical
Risk, instability, uncertainty, change, volatility: These are the buzzwords of our time, and they apply to changing markets as much as they do to changing geo-political conditions and even our changing physical environment. The question is: What do we in the public relations industry do about it? How can we better run our firms to survive in these chaotic times? Can we build sustainable, growing businesses and still stay sane?
An article in the current Harvard Business Review argues in favor of one more buzzword—adaptability—as a strategy that offers businesses “the new competitive advantage.” Observing quantitative increases in market volatility, as well as the porous nature of many industries, authors and Boston Consulting Group partners Martin Reeves and Mike Deimler claim that “competitive advantage no longer arises exclusively from position, scale, and first-order capabilities in producing or delivering an offering,” since these don’t change much over time. Rather, advantage derives from “the ‘second order’ organizational capabilities” that allow businesses to “be really good at learning how to do new things” rather than just do one thing extraordinarily well. It’s about developing people and empowering them to think creatively, experiment, and take action in innovative ways.
Reeves and Deimler develop their argument by pointing to four areas in which innovative companies have focused in their attempts to be more adaptable. Companies have: 1) developed the ability to “read and act on signals” better, cutting through the mass of overwhelming information that comes at us each and every day; 2) developed their ability to experiment better, faster, and more widely, and to tolerate the failures that come inevitably with experimentation; 3) developed the ability to “manage complex multicompany systems,” recognizing that it isn’t so much companies that compete any longer as it is webs or ecosystems made up of companies, suppliers, customers, etc.; and 4) developed their ability to mobilize quickly, moving decision-making authority to the front lines while still keeping intact centralized rules and values to guide decision-making.
While pervasive instability is certainly uncomfortable to experience, in some ways it puts public relations firms 
at an advantage. Public relations professionals have long understood the many parts of the marketing mix, working across multiple departments in client organizations. Likewise, public relations firms have used their nimbleness to innovate and stay ahead, oftentimes producing results more efficiently than the competition. WCG Founder and CEO Jim Weiss, whose firm has grown over the past 10 years from a single person consultancy focused on biotechnology and life sciences to a 250-person operation working in increasingly diversified business categories, including healthcare, consumer, technology and entertainment, notes, “Responsiveness and transparency with relative speed and immediacy have always been qualities that the best PR professionals possess, and never have those been more important than in the new social/digital media age.”
Many public relations firms are especially well positioned to adapt to future change, as they have already adopted their models and strategies to meet the new demands of digital communications. “We are increasingly seeing communications and PR pros within companies taking on broader responsibilities than ever before,” Weiss observes. “Communications is happening in real-time online, where multiple stakeholders are seeing it all at once. Companies can no longer communicate in silos, and they increasingly have to speak with one unified voice—something the PR profession is particularly well-trained and suited to help them do well.”
The challenge facing most public relations firms is how to continue deepening the entrepreneurial mindset we’ve already brought to our businesses. Having experienced rapid growth, innovative firms might find it hard to undergo further adaptation, given the investment, pain, and disruption that adaptation entails. Yet it’s vital that firms affirm their commitment to ongoing change. Specifically, they should continue to bring in the technology, people, and process-level changes that will enable them to compete in partnership with clients. They also should focus on taking action, not just thinking about change; as the title of a book co-authored by Babson College President, and moderator for this year’s Critical Issues Forum, Leonard Schlesinger reminds us, “action trumps everything.” In an email exchange with us, Schlesinger expanded on his theme, exhorting PR firms to “take action, learn from it, and take more action. Since all Internet communications can be measured in ways that weren’t possible in the past, this method is enormously empowering to PR.”
Finally, firms should make sure they don’t over-react to daily developments, as grim and scary as those developments might seem. Given the adaptation we’ve committed ourselves to thus far, our industry can feel confident about our ability to confront further change as it happens. This is a message we should bring to our clients as well. In a perpetually evolving media and business landscape, it is possible to compete and win—so long as we keep adaptation top-of-mind and mission critical.
How best to do that? Where specifically should firms focus? We welcome your thoughts and comments!
- In: Adaptation, Innovation
Superb blog, Kathy, and a great reminder to some that media by the pound is no longer the currency of the day. We’re always focused on what’s next and what’s new and plan to announce a significantly different service offering in the next few months. There’s never been a better time to be in PR. But, there’s also never been more risk associated with doing business as usual.
[...] I spoke with the Council of Public Relations (PR) Firms about how well PR firms are positioned to adapt to market instability and [...]