The only way is ethics

Sitting at the comms2point0 UnAwards last year, I was struck by a huge sense of pride. Pride at being part of a sector that produced such incredible work. There we are, the comms professionals, empowering people to make choices, equipping them with information and influencing change. The awards highlighted work from large teams and small. Light-hearted messaging and the deathly serious. Passion and commitment and skill.

Work like the Queen’s funeral, ten days of intense activity that included everything from briefing the world’s press and museum-based nostalgia, to telling local residents how their refuse collections will be affected.

Work like the sublime video from Durham Constabulary, a masterclass in gaining trust to produce a message that draws you through a range of difficult emotions and leaves you feeling different. 

I was so proud to be part of an industry that is skilled and conscientious and making a difference. 

It contrasts sharply with feelings I have experienced elsewhere over recent weeks. Why can’t [don’t/won’t] comms people communicate effectively about comms?

It started with a comment on LinkedIn, responding to the government’s open letter to social housing providers following the tragic and avoidable death of Awaab Ishak. A housing professional posted, “Structural issues here not helped by the glossing of PR teams. We shouldn’t shy away from the truth.”

Excuse, me, but “glossing” a child’s death? Are you kidding me?

Naturally, I put them straight that their post was the antithesis of decent comms advice, but to have thought any professional might shy away from the truth when a child dies is pretty abhorrent. That it could possibly be the aims of us comms professionals is repugnant and utterly, utterly wrong. 

More recently, in that autobiography, Prince Harry has shared his experience of communications offices within the royal household, allegedly adopting diversionary tactics to avoid dealing with anything unpalatable. Regardless of whether you believe him, regardless of whether it’s true, it’s an unedifying representation of our sector that no one is challenging or thinks is unlikely, because a constant refrain from our sector is that no one (least of all, colleagues), actually understands what we do. God forbid someone ask us to “add our magic” in a clumsy attempt to acknowledge that we do something they can’t. 

But you see, that’s the bit I don’t get. 

We can deliver the most complex and challenging messages with style, creativity and impact; we can effect life-saving behaviour change, we can speak truth to power… but we can’t consistently portray our own sector so that people understand we are ethical, well-trained, honourable, skilled. As the saying goes, make it make sense.

And while people think that PR and comms pop up at the sound of bad news to do some kind of fandangled sleight of hand (so you follow the sparkly rather than ask tough questions), it’s making our actual roles harder. For a start, it’s opening the door for hostile “journalists” (I use the term loosely) and opaquely funded groups that purport to represent the honest taxpayer to submit FOI requests en masse to local authorities (all of which have a cost to the public purse) so that they can then write attack articles on how shock, horror, councils spend money on communications. Of course they do, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of that. If they didn’t, they would struggle to be as transparent as they are (which the critics are only too aware of. Colour me cynical about the motives here). 

You may never work somewhere where you need to explain acts and omissions that led to the death of a child. You may never need to show people the devastating consequences of using your phone while you drive. You may never need to persuade people to wear face masks, stay indoors and refrain from hugging people they love. 

But because we are humans and humans are never perfect; because life is uncertain and you never know what is around the corner; because accidents happen and a split-second decision can change someone’s life forever; there will come a point when you need to manage some really difficult messaging. Possibly unpleasant, possibly emotive – but manage it you must. 

All too often, communications skills are not adequately represented at board level or reputational hits are not risk mapped correctly, yet we still have our preparations in place for the landing of a black swan. It’s often said (and very true) that you don’t know when you have a good comms team, but you do know when you have a bad one. 

But outside of the comms world, it’s the complete opposite. The chaotic person in a sitcom invariably works in PR (especially if it’s a woman), yet try to think about a positive, accurate representation of comms in entertainment? Jurassic World Dominion’s comms director, Ramsay Cole, whistle-blows the corruption of senior leaders, but doesn’t actually do any communications work at all during the film beyond offering visitors a complimentary coffee. At least he’s a director, I guess. 

Is it any wonder people think communications is frivolous, because we allow the narrative about our skills to be dictated by non-communications people with minimal understanding of the subtle complexities of what we do – often while working on “nothing about us without us” campaigns for our stakeholder groups. It’s an irony. 

You know, I believe that when the messaging is most difficult, that’s when you really see the skill in our sector. Like the Durham Constabulary video. Like the pandemic. Like the cost of living crisis. Examples of superb, compassionate and ethical comms abound, yet what people expect of our trade in the direst of circumstances is “glossing”.

Crisis happens many times and in many different ways. We don’t get out the gloss and the spin. We get out our superpowers: authenticity, ethics, and vulnerability. 

Authenticity is your insurance that you can’t get caught out. Think Twitter hypocrisy (or the “there’s always a tweet” effect), where people can so easily poke around your historic posts and undermine your point by highlighting incongruity. If you are authentic and true to your purpose, a sea change is planned and communicated, not resurfaced by a challenger as an embarrassing change of position.

And vulnerability, I’ve learned, is where power truly lies. If a weak person needs to be vulnerable, they are defensive and potentially vicious. If someone is strong enough to show vulnerability because that’s where the truth lies… wow. Jacinda, I am looking at you. 

And both of these superpowers are underpinned by their ethical application, where our attempts at influence come from a place of good, where we seek to empower, where we drive improvement. But we also need to appreciate that the ethical route isn’t a binary choice.  

As much as we like to believe the fairytale of good wins over evil, and that the baddies are always obvious by their looks, in reality ethics are nuanced shades of scale. I know I cannot in good conscience provide comms support for a high-profile railway project I don’t believe in, but it’s someone else’s prerogative to support it. While someone’s politics may be diametrically opposed to mine, they have a right to those beliefs, and those beliefs need good comms support. If purpose and integrity are in place, we avoid the step over the line into propaganda. If not… Well, it comes unravelled eventually (one hopes). 

So perhaps we, the collective comms professionals, need to start telling our own story more loudly. Let’s not wait for the newspaper stories bemoaning councils for spending money on websites (that meet the government’s digital by default agenda, enable services to be accessible and reduce the costs of contact centres, which are benefits we just know will be missing from the articles). Let’s lead the conversation that communications is an ethical practice, driven by purpose and shaped by integrity. Let’s show these media narratives about comms up for what they are: poor practice, not core practice. 

Let’s use our own voices more. I’m proud to work in comms. I’m proud to be an ethical practitioner and I am proud to make a difference. 

Jill Spurr is head of communications and marketing at Affinity Trust. This is an edited version of a post which first appeared on comms2point0. Read the original post.