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Seeking tomorrow’s leaders today. Do you have it in you?: Thursdays with Tushar
By Tushar Panchal on Feb 7, 2008 in Indian PR industry
It’s the time of the week again and I am back at drawing board ready to paint the picture with keyboard and fill it with colors of my thoughts and imagination of my love for PR. This week, I missed many exciting moments by not being available on my GoogleTalk, not being regular on my Facebook and not updating my Twitter feed due to extreme working conditions. While one of my clients is busy launching special products for Valentine’s Day, another one is trying to release a special movie for the day. In all these, only God knows what would happen to my Valentine. I think Valentine never comes well in time! Well, all these ‘you love me or not days’ have become marketing gimmicks and the real love have been lost somewhere. I think for a ‘real’ human everyday is a valentine day and every day is an occasion to express. You don’t need a greeting card company to remind that you care for your mother or love your sister! Do you?
We create stories. We create perceptions. We sell greeting cards, credit cards, loyalty cards, this card, that card and what card! Where are we? Do we get the real love we are looking for? Why can’t PR be a first choice of career when it comes to corporate career? Why can’t we demand what is right and not settle for whatever is left? Can you imagine buying a product from a company who is not in your ‘seven seconds’ frame? So, what are we doing? Do I resort to violent jumps like a certain Mr. Left alone from the clan and his Vanar Sena is doing or indulge in to oral porn like Mr. Never going to die lion! You need to do something. I need to do something. We all need to do something.
Why can’t we come out of this schizophrenic behavior and demand our rightful space under the sun? Does Company’s business strategy need to be different from a PR strategy? Look at PR. What does it do? We all know the answer. Many of the world’s most successful companies have great PR professionals as the CEOs. The better you are at managing public relationships, the better you would be at managing the company’s stock in the market.
I was reading somewhere that PR has a unique advantage of being the most flexible communication solution available. In my personal opinion, PR professionals or consultancies should play a lead role and help the board choose the right reputation strategy. We should help organizations to devise the complete ‘mindset neutral’ communication strategy to help them achieve their business objectives.
So, where is the problem? The problem is that PR lacks professionalism. It lacks the vision and intellectual authority. We must work towards it in a planned manner. Look at the advertising industry. They have done it systematically and made sure that whenever a company is seeking any marketing or communication advice they come to advertising agencies. They have invested in building a perception by doing various structured PR activities and what have we done. Our own PR bodies are fighting with each other and many of them exist only in some CEO’s cabins! We need some champions to come forward and claim that positioning which people like Prasoon Joshi or Piyush Pandey created for them in advertising or Rajeev Karwal and Sunil Alagh created in marketing. I want to be known as Tushar Panchal of PR, is there anyone else? And, my little tiger is humming a tune in his sweet little voice, “Tum Chalo to Hindustan Chale…” I have it in me. Do you have it in you?
On Feb 7, 2008, Vikas Chaudhary said:
I agree that PR today lacks vision and professionalism. PR is no more about quantity but coverage quantity….
But i think just like Piyush Pandey and Prasoon Joshi of advertising, We also have Dilip Cherian and Prema Sagar of PR… dont we?
On Feb 7, 2008, Tushar said:
Dear Vikas:
I am sorry I missed to raise the valid point in the post! This is not about not having the leadership - it’s about not having an intellectual leadership for tomorrow. Its is about we failing to create the right perception and not getting our rightful place in the corporate environment.
I might have missed the thought process somewhere in between - that’s what happens with me once in a while…
Btw, I know both Dilip and Prema and I respect them immeasurably.
Take care,
Tushar
On Feb 8, 2008, Loknath Swain said:
Dear Tushar,
Greetings from a PR person!
I am your well-wisher and a newcomer / member of PR fraternity from journalism and sales. PR is not only my love, but it is in blood. I used to read your writings. Your has raised a lot questions in front of me!
Tushar, you are one of the professional who could try to make PR issues as weekly column in a readable way! It is changing time in the profession! Earlier, a journalist was making a good PR person! I was in Orissa before coming to Mumbai. You will find one thing all PR people common in Bhubaneswar - they are all former journalists! But time has changed. In future, you need to be specialist in a particular subject and IT expert in addition to your expertise in mass media. Time is about to reach when a PR person will be “many in one”. PR persons should fight for what they need to learn in this age of new generation technologies! Have you ever studied the alumni graph of ISB, Hyderabad? ISB could make many to be in senior management of many top corporate by training them in “required expertise”. I wish you to come with specific cases asking members of our fraternity to learn to make it to next level instead of talking about leadership in “generalised way ” or general story of a CEO’s cabin ! As you are a senior profession in our field, we expect you to raise issues before the oerganisation to support talents “with potentials” to train themselves in ISB or IIM or Harvard kind of b-schools in long duration executive programmes! I am talking about to see PR professional sharing desks in such b-schools along with IIT graduates of their generation! That will help many senior professionals to go back to “schools” to get prepared for the level you are talking! I have kept track on most of the people you have mentioned in your column! The common thing in all of them is: they are all great learners in all changing scenario! Learning is the ladder on which they are on and recognition is following them. It has to follow!
I wish your column will help me to learn more on “how to” and “what to” learn! I assure (do you need guarantee?) a pro-active environment in our field will make many of us to take the profession to the level you are blogging today!
Thanking you,
Loknath Swain
Mumbai
On Feb 14, 2008, Tushar said:
Dear Loknath:
Please excuse me for not being able to reply to you earlier. You have given some very interesting insights and I think industry should take note of it. I have worked with an agency, which not only sent its people to IIM-A but made them sit in boardrooms of large corproates on equal platform. The whole idea of PR is quite subjective and varies from one agency to another. If you ask me what PR is all about and if I reply in my honest and true words, I may look like a fool and no employer will come forward to hire me in India!
Let’s talk offline - send me a mail on editor@indiaprblog.com and it will reach me and then we will take forward our discussion.
Take care and all the best! We need people with PR in the blood.
Cheers!!