The Abundant Information Gold Mine at the Institute for Public Relations

Join us for an engaging conversation with Dr. Tina McCorkindale, the dynamic president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations, as she chats with host Peter Woolfolk to unveil the shifting tides of the public relations world through groundbreaking research. Discover how Dr. McCorkindale manages to lead a Florida-based organization from Seattle, harnessing the power of technology to transcend geographical boundaries. We'll dive into IPR's pivotal research efforts, including a fascinating study with Peppercom on the evolving media landscape, and explore how PR leaders can fortify their strategic roles, particularly in crisis management and reputation building. Prepare to gain valuable insights into how educating boards of directors on modern media can enhance organizational dynamics and ensure communication leaders are integral to the leadership team.

Explore the intricacies of internal communication with us, drawing inspiration from the show "Undercover Boss" to spotlight the communication chasm often found between senior leaders and their teams. Recent study findings point to disparities in work-life balance and value alignment across organizational levels, suggesting a pressing need for authentic dialogue. We'll discuss actionable strategies for bridging these gaps, advocate for supporting local journalism as a vital information source, and unveil the free resources available on our website to help tackle organizational challenges. Whether you're a PR veteran or just kicking off your career, this episode equips you with the tools to enhance your role as a strategic partner in your organization.

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Chapters

• 0:59 Insights on Public Relations Research
• 12:33 Effective Public Relations Strategies

Transcript

Announcer: 1:00

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, peter Woolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk: 1:21

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now, Apple has ranked this podcast among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide, so thank you to all of our guests and listeners for making this possible. So if you enjoy the podcast, we certainly would like to get a review from you. Now a question for the audience Are you familiar with the Institute for Public Relations and the many services they offer the public relations professional?

Peter Woolfolk: 1:49

Well, in addition to PR research, they also create, curate and promote research and initiatives that empower professionals with actionable insights and intelligence they can put to immediate use. My guest today will expand on these benefits, and she is Dr Tina McCorkindale, APR, and the president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations, a nonprofit research think tank on advocating and advancing the public relations industry through research and promoting best practices. Ipr is located at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She has more than 20 years of academic teaching experience and over a decade in corporate communication and analytics, and she joins me today from Seattle Washington, Tina welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 2:39

Hi, thank you so much for having me, Peter. I really appreciate it.

Peter Woolfolk: 2:42

Well, let's start with something that obviously got my attention right quick. You are head of the Institute for Public Relations in Florida, yet you live in Seattle. Just talk briefly about how you commute, how you manage that. That's not driving from the suburbs.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 3:01

I would imagine that there's a lot of Zoom activities involved in that. There are a lot of Zoom activities and a lot of travel. At IPR we host events all over the world, so I travel a lot. I am a frequent flyer, with a shout out to Alaska Airlines for always supporting my travel.

Peter Woolfolk: 3:22

Well, that's good to hear. So let's start, since you do both research and, as you say, some actionable insights and intelligence available. Let's talk about some of the research you do that might be applicable to, and how it's applicable to, some of the PR people.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 3:38

Sure.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 3:40

So, we do a few things. Pr people, sure, so we do a few things. One is we conduct research ourselves and then what the topics that are decided are from our trustees, what they believe are the most important issues of the day, and we do those through also our commissions and centers of excellence. And then we also curate research, we help sponsor research and give awards for research, and it's really the function of our mission to make sure that practitioners of all levels have insights that make a difference.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 4:08

So some of the research that we've done recently is we partnered with Peppercom on a research study looking at the media landscape. So we surveyed chief communications officers and we surveyed media relations professionals to find out what are they, what are some of the challenges, what is the current state of the media industry and what do they see looking ahead. So once we do surveys or content analysis or whatever we're doing and identify what is the current state, then we can help give recommendations based on the data. So, for example, one thing that we noticed with our discussions is that the board of directors of organizations seems to be less familiar with the media landscape then chief comms officers in the C-suite. So with that, one of the recommendations we gave was around how to educate and what needs to be done to educate board of directors about the media landscape, because it makes a huge difference. If your board of directors is still very traditional, they're not really thinking of sponsored content or how to manage influencers, then it affects the organization's growth and how they build awareness and manage their reputation.

Peter Woolfolk: 5:32

Well, I would also think that, as you said, because, as they call it the C-suite a lot of people are not familiar with public relations and its benefits, so that sort of, I would say, explaining it to them and the benefits that accrue from it could be very, very crucial.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 5:48

Absolutely, and it also shows how the comms leader is a strategic partner for the organization.

Peter Woolfolk: 5:56

And the importance of public relations. Let me ask you is there any sort of training you mentioned? You know research, but is there any sort of training or way that your comms people can give to their C-suite executives to make sure they understand the value of the PR and communications of the department?

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 6:17

Yeah, I think it's not necessarily. We don't do training on that specifically. Now we're developing a research boot camp to help people be better at distilling insights and understanding research and how it applies, and understanding research and how it applies. But I think one of the best ways for chief communications officers or communication executives is it's demonstrating their value, so it's ensuring that if there is some sort of issue in the organization or some sort of campaign internally or externally, that they are a partner and they have their very solution-oriented. Or when there's a brand issue or a reputation issue or a potential crisis, that they take their expertise and they work with the C-suite or whoever the leadership is of the organization to help steer them in the best path forward.

Peter Woolfolk: 7:15

You know, a lot of times it's important and depending upon the gravity of the issue, that it's hugely important that the chairman, the president, vice president, some C-suite people speak out and get in front of things so that their audience can see that they're serious about addressing whatever the issue is.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 7:32

Yeah, absolutely. And I would say that some organizations or some leaders, their initial reaction is to say nothing and that's like the wrong, that's the wrong action to take. So communication leaders can help offer counsel into what the perceptions of both internal stakeholders your employees and external stakeholders, which includes customers, media analysts, the community, etc. Is also very valuable for helping the CEO or the leader understand the implications based on the people who are involved in whatever scenario it is on the people who are involved, in whatever scenario it is.

Peter Woolfolk: 8:18

One of the things that I've noticed in my pathway along the public relations road is that some communications directors don't have direct contact with the C-suite. They might have to go through somebody to get up there and that person that they have to go through to get there might not have a full understanding and appreciation of the importance of good, solid communications. I hope that there's some way that that can be fixed or you can demonstrate to people that that communication needs to be fully understood by those at the top so that the wheels don't come off at the wrong time.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 8:50

Yeah, absolutely, it's really important. Don't come off at the wrong time. Yeah, absolutely, it's really important, and I think we're not 100% there yet, but I know that Corn Ferry they conduct like a study of chief communications officers and there has been growth in terms of the percentage of leaders who do report directly to the CEO, which even the research we've done have found that that is the best reporting structure. However, it's also very dependent on the organization and who you're reporting through for sure?

Peter Woolfolk: 9:22

Well, I certainly noticed that when I was asked to come down to a local university that's the reason I came to Nashville from Washington DC was that president of the university asked me to come down and head up the communications department at this university and my first question is well, you have a communications team down there.

Peter Woolfolk: 9:41

Why do you need me down there? Well, you know, we're not very comfortable with the work that they've been doing and sometimes the people in those positions have not had the exposure. And let me say right quick, I've worked in Congress for the chairman of a major committee. I was a member of the Clinton administration, so I've had contact and I understand how important it is that the people who are seen in responsible positions have the opportunity to fully understand what's going on, without it being watered down, and the importance of their response to those things. That's why I just wanted to at least bring that particular issue up. That conduit has to be sort of without a lot of roadblocks.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 10:20

Absolutely, and it also helps you respond faster and be more agile.

Peter Woolfolk: 10:25

Well, what other sort of things are that? I mean, that's one particular important. Do you have any other sort of research that you think might be important to public relations professionals?

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 10:35

Yes, we do have a study that's coming out in Q1, and that is looking at employee engagement specifically in the public relations industry, and my colleague, olivia Farhardo, managed this study and we're doing this study with the Grossman Group and we looked at engagement specifically of comms professionals, because there's not a lot in that area for us. I mean there's employee engagement in general, but I feel like PR people are very we have very different sort of lifestyles, very different interactions and organizations. We're responsible for multiple stakeholders, we deal with crises, we have social media, which is right. It's rarely a nine to five job for us. So in that study we looked at all sorts of different factors, such as relationship with others in the organization, the type of work you do, flexibility, your relationship with your supervisor, return to office policies. I mean all these different factors and this is like such a tremendous study and there's some really interesting findings there, like, for example, almost half of communicators agree that their organization has undergone too many changes within the past year.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 11:53

And that affects their retention, and also that there needs more work on how to improve listening and having formal listening structures within the organization, and also emphasizing the importance of mental health. And what we've found consistently in this study and a study we did on disabilities in the workplace is that schedule flexibility makes such a significant difference with employee satisfaction and engagement right and even like having a best friend at work, having really great supervisor relationships. So this is this is such a intense study that I highly recommend. This is what I would call a two-glass-of-wine study. That's where you sit down with two glasses of wine and you read through the study when it comes out. It's so good and there's so much great information. But Olivia on our team did such a great job with it and I truly I loved reading it and going through it, so it's fascinating.

Peter Woolfolk: 12:56

You know, one of the things as we were talking came to mind to me was that there used to be a show called Undercover Boss.

Peter Woolfolk: 13:04

Oh yeah, I'm totally familiar with that show. Oh, that's right. Well, just for our listeners, what happened was the boss went in disguise into a list of remote parts of the company and probably out of town or whatever, to find out what was really going on. And a lot of times he or she might ask about well, how about this program? Well, we've never heard of that program, you know, we didn't know anything about it. And you guys, well, we've never heard of that program, you know, we didn't know anything about it. So some of the things that people in C-suite think should be happening are not, but they don't know. Because whatever information they're getting from who is over that particular area is not giving all the accurate information, for whatever reason. So that conduit communications conduit has to be thorough, has to be accurate, and people have to have confidence that it's going to work, that if we're going to do what you ask us to do, that you're going to respond the way we think you should respond.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 13:59

Yes, and you know, one of the things we did the way we did find one of the findings of the study was that senior leadership experiences work differently. People with higher seniority were more likely to report better work-life balance, schedule flexibility, value alignment than people at other levels of the organization. And what we've also traditionally found in other studies is that senior leadership whenever we have senior leaders or executives to evaluate their work or how well they're doing or what their perception of their employees are, are they always rate it much higher. You know they're like yes, our employees are more satisfied at the entry level and mid-level, and that's actually the but then when we ask the entry mid-level to rate at there, it's like usually pretty significant, significant gap.

Peter Woolfolk: 14:48

So well, but it's interesting yeah, I agree with you. That's one of the reasons that I think that there should be some direct communication between employees and senior staff, so that everybody can be on the same page and, you know, are we doing what we said we're going to do and is it working? So that dialogue has to take place just to make sure that. Uh, you know, we all agree that what's supposed to be happening is happening the way it's supposed to happen.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 15:13

Yeah, absolutely, and I do believe your comment about undercover, bob, when you're in an organization, whether it's B2B and you have like factory lines or production lines, or whether you have retail or whether you're in health care is that senior leaders must must go there and actually witness what's happening every day, not visit and do a town hall, but shadow people to really see, see the experience that others have and talk to people who are there about their own experiences, those employees and the people who may be visiting, whatever sort of establishment it is, or so on. I think that gives you such great insight and it also alerts you to any sort of process issues or rule issues that may be hindering whether it's employee satisfaction or even helping the organization be its best.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 16:05

Because I feel like we enact a lot of rules in the organization. We have a lot of like what we found. People say there's too many changes in organizations and it just kind of it gets exhausting for people.

Peter Woolfolk: 16:17

I agree with you. Now we'd also mention that you have some actionable insights and intelligence that PR professionals can put to immediate use. What are some of those insights and intelligence that are available?

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 16:30

Yeah, so I think one of those is an example of this employee engagement study. So we give recommendations on what people can do and what they can easily do now, and part of that is ensuring that you have frequent conversations with your supervisors about the progress at work right, or teaching people how to give constructive feedback, teaching people how to give good feedback that's helpful to them to make a difference. We also, in one of our studies that we do in disinformation, we are strong supporters of local journalism, so we do encourage organizations to help support advertising and subscriptions of local journalism. So we do encourage organizations to help support advertising and subscriptions of local journalism, because local journalism, local newspapers and broadcasts are the most trusted sources for both Democrats and Republicans, and why that's important is typically we see huge gaps in trust depending on the type of media right.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 17:30

So, Democrats are significantly more likely to trust the New York Times than Republicans, and Republicans are significantly more likely to trust Fox News than Democrats. But where they come together is local journalism and you can see right now, you know, or even when there's weather issues, when there's community issues, that's who you go to first, whether it's online or whether it's what you watch on television. So with that, that's one of the things that we say this is a media. You can do this right now and support local journalism and help fund nonprofits like the MacArthur Foundation, who can help fund new nonprofit news organizations and things like that you know.

Peter Woolfolk: 18:12

one of the things I want to say to our listeners is that I have been on your website and some of this information you're talking about is easily downloadable. So you they might want to think you know either join or just go on the website and, if it fits some of the concerns that you have, just download the information and you're off and running yes, and you know we have our website.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 18:34

We have so many topics related to calm and it's all for free. All our information, our website, is available for free, and that's one of the key parts of our mission is that we make it accessible for everyone. So, yeah, check out our website, it's a great website.

Peter Woolfolk: 18:52

You know and also you know it's not all reading. You've got a lot of videos that goes along with that information as well.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 18:57

Yes, we also do a great series that I am so fortunate to participate in In a Car with IPR, and that's where we go to different locations and we interview communication executives and find out about their career journey, what's on their mind, and we also do webinars and all sorts of different programs. And we have in-person conferences too. We have a bridge conference we do in Washington DC, and then we also have a commissions and center summit that we do in New York. So we do a lot of programs as well.

Peter Woolfolk: 19:28

Well, as I said, I'm from Washington DC and I'm actually going to be moving back sometime this spring or this summer, and once I get settled in, I'll keep an eye out for you guys, because I do intend to continue the podcast from Washington as well. So the fact that you might be up there, we might have a chance to cross paths sometime in the near future.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 19:47

That would be great. Peter, I would love to meet you in person. I always love when you connect with someone in real life, that you've formed a relationship on the telephone or on Zoom or in some other way.

Peter Woolfolk: 20:03

Now we've gone over a few things, is there anything that you think that the listeners should know about IPR that we have not touched on?

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 20:11

Yeah, I think just we're a very, such a great organization and I would encourage everyone to get involved as much as possible. Like our research found that professional development is so important to people and it's that networking and connection. So we have a couple programs that people can join, like our IPR Elevate or IPR Next Group, and really fantastic people, and I think that's what we thrive on is connections and human relationships, and that helps make us better people and smarter people. So that's my plug. And just like what you're doing, peter, on your podcast, so that's so important for people to hear about the latest and greatest of what's happening. So thank you for facilitating that as well.

Peter Woolfolk: 20:57

Well, you know, that's really the purpose that, when I thought about putting this podcast together, my first question to myself is what would I like to hear on a PR podcast? And my answer to myself was I'd like to hear information that I can use every day, and so that's one of the reasons that, uh, you know, I think we've perhaps grown as much as we have in five years. I don't, I don't think I've mentioned it to you, but we are heard right now in 151 countries around the world, and that covers 3050 cities.

Peter Woolfolk: 21:30

So amazing it's nothing that we did to do that. It's one of those things that obviously, whatever we're doing is working and people appreciated that we've picked up awards. It's one of those things that obviously, whatever we're doing is working and people appreciated that. We've picked up awards along the way, not only here, but several from the United Kingdom as well. So if it's working, I pretty much stick with it.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 21:48

I think it's fantastic, fantastic.

Peter Woolfolk: 21:51

Well, when I talked to your colleague I think it was the Public Affairs Counselor he mentioned your name. Well, when I talked to your colleague I think it was the Public Affairs Council he mentioned your name. That's why we reached out, because I look for information that I can give to people, that they can use. You know, everybody won't need everything, but a lot of times I get emails that do say hey, we really did appreciate what you've got.

Peter Woolfolk: 22:16

One lady who was on the board of PRSA said she was listening on the way home and she took some notes because we oh, I love that, I love that, yes, and that was very Took some notes we could use.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 22:23

Yeah, doug Peekham, at the Public Affairs Council they do some really great research as well, and that's what I'll also say is that our industry is also so amazing at connections among the different industry organizations. That's one of my favorite parts as well. We share research and we talk about research, so it's fantastic.

Peter Woolfolk: 22:43

Well, Tina, let me ask you if you've got any closing remarks you'd like to make to our audience.

Dr. Tina McCorkindale: 22:48

Yeah, I would say I hope everyone has a very healthy and happy year and that they love what they do every day, and I so appreciate the opportunity to be here. So thank you, peter.

Peter Woolfolk: 23:01

Well, good, thank you so very much. My guest today has been Dr Tina McCorkindale, apr, and she is the president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations. We certainly hope that you've appreciated it and, if you do, we certainly like to get a review from you and also share this particular episode with your friends and colleagues. And don't forget to listen to the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast.

Announcer: 23:24

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.