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Summary What
separates a public relations function that merely produces outputs from one
that drives genuine organisational effectiveness? For more than a decade,
James Grunig and a team of researchers funded by a nearly half-million-dollar
IABC grant investigated this question — producing the most comprehensive body
of evidence in the history of the PR profession. This article presents a
rigorous examination of Grunig's Excellence Theory: its foundational
definition of organisational effectiveness, the two primary frameworks for
measuring it, and the ten generic principles that characterise excellent
public relations practice regardless of industry, culture, or organisational
size. Each principle is examined in depth and illustrated with modern
examples from Microsoft, Netflix, Patagonia, Unilever, Google, and others.
The article concludes with a detailed analysis of the Entergy Hurricane
Katrina case study — a defining example of excellence principles applied
under the most extreme operational conditions imaginable. Drawing on
scholarship from Grunig, Vercic, Bowen, and Robbins, this article argues that
excellence in PR is not a matter of budget or seniority — it is a matter of
structural design, strategic positioning, and the discipline to apply proven
principles consistently. |
Keywords: Excellence Theory · Grunig · Organisational Effectiveness · Ten Principles · Strategic Management · Two-Way Symmetrical PR · Crisis Communication · Entergy
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SECTION 01 Introduction The Question That Drove a Half-Million-Dollar Study |
What makes public relations excellent? Not
merely competent, not merely active, but genuinely excellent — capable of
making a measurable contribution to the effectiveness of the organisations it
serves, capable of building relationships that endure, and capable of earning
the strategic credibility that allows it to operate at the highest levels of
organisational decision-making?
This question animated one of the most
ambitious research programmes in the history of the PR profession. Funded by a
grant of nearly half a million dollars from the International Association of
Business Communicators (IABC), James Grunig and his team of researchers spent
more than a decade studying PR functions across hundreds of organisations in
the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.¹ The result was the
Excellence Study — a body of evidence so comprehensive and so rigorous that its
findings became the foundation of what scholars and practitioners now call
excellence theory.
¹
Grunig, J. E. (Ed.). (1992). Excellence in public relations and communication
management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
The Excellence Study did not seek to
identify best practices in the sense of popular management literature —
anecdotal observations from successful organisations that might or might not
generalise. It sought to identify generic principles: factors that predict PR
excellence regardless of culture, industry, organisational size, or type of
organisation. The ten principles it identified are the subject of this article.
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"These principles
can be used to design the public relations function in an organisation to
structure its interaction with management and the rest of the organisation —
and to staff the public relations department in a way that predisposes it
toward effectiveness. The more of these factors that are present in a public
relations function, the more excellent that function should be." — Grunig Excellence Theory — Core Framework |
This article examines each of the ten
principles in depth — connecting the original theoretical framework to
contemporary organisational practice — and concludes with a detailed analysis
of the Entergy Hurricane Katrina case study, which demonstrates all ten
principles operating simultaneously under the most extreme conditions any
communication team could face.
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SECTION 02 Organisational
Effectiveness What It Means and How It Is Measured |
Before the Excellence Study could identify
the principles that distinguish excellent PR from mediocre PR, it needed to
establish a rigorous definition of what "effective" means in an
organisational context. This is not a trivial question: organisations vary
enormously in their nature, their goals, and the environments in which they
operate. A definition of effectiveness that works only for for-profit
corporations in competitive markets would not be generalisable to universities,
hospitals, government agencies, or nonprofits.
The Excellence Study settled on a
definition that transcends these distinctions: organisational effectiveness is
helping any type of organisation be the most efficient at what it seeks to do
and the most effective it can be in accomplishing its goals and mission. This
definition is deliberately broad — it applies to a multinational corporation
and a community health clinic with equal force.
Two Frameworks
for Measuring Effectiveness
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STRATEGIC CONSTITUENCIES PERSPECTIVE |
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GOAL ATTAINMENT PERSPECTIVE |
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Effectiveness is measured by the satisfaction of
strategic constituencies — those groups that have the power to decide whether
the organisation thrives or fails. Examples: consumers, regulatory agencies, investors,
communities, media. When
constituencies are satisfied, the organisation thrives. When they withdraw
support or confidence, the organisation is at existential risk. |
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Effectiveness is measured by comparing actual
performance against stated, measurable goals — market share figures, sales
numbers, stakeholder satisfaction scores, reputation rankings. The organisation is effective when its actual
figures match its stated goals. An
ineffective organisation has "competing values" — unclear,
inconsistent, or shifting goals — and therefore flounders without ever
measuring its own success accurately. |
The strategic constituencies perspective
aligns naturally with the core logic of public relations: the function that
manages relationships with the publics that determine organisational survival
is the function most directly contributing to organisational effectiveness as
defined by this framework. When PR maintains the satisfaction of strategic
constituencies — investors, regulators, communities, customers, employees — it
is performing the most fundamental act of strategic value.
The goal attainment perspective, by
contrast, creates the measurability imperative that the Excellence Study placed
at the heart of excellent PR practice. An organisation that cannot define its
goals precisely enough to measure whether they have been achieved is, by
definition, ineffective — not because it is failing, but because it cannot know
whether it is succeeding.
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CAUTIONARY EXAMPLE | Nokia — The "Competing Values" Trap (2007–2013) Nokia's collapse as a mobile phone market leader is
a paradigmatic case of what Robbins calls an "ineffective
organisation" with "competing values" — one that is
"unclear about its own emphases" or criteria for success. Through
the late 2000s, Nokia oscillated between competing strategic frameworks:
protecting its hardware market share, developing its operating system
ecosystem, managing carrier relationships, and responding to the iPhone's
disruption of the smartphone category. Each represented a legitimate
strategic priority; none was pursued with the clarity and consistency that
goal attainment requires. The PR function, unable to communicate a clear
organisational direction to either internal or external publics, found itself
simultaneously managing contradictory narratives. Nokia's market share in
smartphones fell from approximately 40% in 2007 to under 5% by 2013. The
lesson is direct: without clear, consistent, measurable goals, even a
well-resourced PR function cannot build the stakeholder relationships that
organisational effectiveness demands. Reference: Doz, Y., & Wilson, K. (2017). Ringtone:
Exploring the Rise and Fall of Nokia in Mobile Phones. Oxford University
Press. |
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SECTION 03 The Ten Generic Principles
of Excellence The Architecture of World-Class PR Practice |
After years of quantitative and qualitative
research across organisations in multiple countries, the Excellence Study team
distilled the factors that most strongly predict PR excellence into ten generic
principles. They are called "generic" precisely because they did not
vary across cultures, national boundaries, organisational sizes, or industry
types — they represent universal conditions for PR excellence.²
²
Vercic, D., Grunig, L. A., & Grunig, J. E. (1996). Global and specific
principles of public relations: Evidence from Slovenia. In H. M. Culbertson
& N. Chen (Eds.), International public relations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
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01 Strategic Management Involvement PR
participates in setting organisational strategy, not just executing it. |
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06 Two-Way Symmetrical Model Dialogue-based
communication; organisation listens as well as speaks. |
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02 Empowerment in the Dominant Coalition Direct
reporting to the CEO; a seat at the executive decision-making table. |
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07 Knowledge for Symmetrical PR Research
capacity, negotiation skills, and collaborative problem-solving. |
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03 Integrated PR Function Access
and authority across all levels; not siloed or subordinated. |
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08 Symmetrical Internal Communication Two-way
dialogue with employees; builds morale, reduces turnover. |
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04 PR as Separate Management Function Independent
from marketing and legal; guards against encroachment. |
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09 Diversity in All Roles Diverse
voices ensure inclusive decisions and communication. |
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05 Manager Rather Than Technician Led
by a research-capable, strategically trained manager, not a writer. |
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10 Ethics and Integrity Ethical
decision-making embedded throughout; added as a standalone principle. |
These ten principles are not independent
variables — they are interdependent elements of a coherent system. A PR
function that achieves principles 1 and 2 (strategic involvement and executive
empowerment) but lacks principle 6 (two-way symmetrical communication) will
have access to the executive table but will bring only one-way broadcast
thinking to the decisions made there. A function that embodies principle 6 but
lacks principle 5 (manager rather than technician leadership) will have the
right philosophy but not the research and management capability to implement it
strategically. Excellence is systemic — the more principles present, the more
excellent the function.
Principles 1
and 2: Strategic Involvement and Executive Empowerment
The first two principles are the gateway
conditions for all the others. Without involvement in strategic management, the
PR function operates in a reactive, executional mode — implementing decisions
already made by others rather than contributing intelligence to the
decision-making process itself. Without empowerment in the dominant coalition —
a direct reporting relationship to the CEO — the PR function cannot advise on
the ethical, reputational, and stakeholder implications of decisions that
affect every public the organisation must maintain relationships with.
The Excellence Study found that PR is most
excellent when reporting directly to the CEO rather than through an
intermediary layer. Later research confirmed and strengthened this finding: the
degree of direct access to the chief executive is one of the strongest single
predictors of PR excellence in the data.³
³
Grunig, L. A., Grunig, J. E., & Dozier, D. M. (2002). Excellent public
relations and effective organisations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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MODERN EXAMPLE | Microsoft — Satya Nadella and the CCO at the Strategic Table
(2014–present) Principles 1 and 2 Embodied at Global Scale Under Satya Nadella's leadership, Microsoft's Chief
Communications Officer has operated with a degree of strategic involvement
and executive empowerment that exemplifies both of the study's first
principles. The communications function was not merely consulted on
announcements — it was embedded in the strategic planning process for
Microsoft's most consequential decisions: the acquisition of LinkedIn, the
partnership with OpenAI, and the repositioning of Azure as the company's
central growth engine. Communications counsel was sought before these
decisions were finalised, not after. The result was a communications function
that could develop narratives grounded in strategic reality rather than
retrofit messaging to decisions already made. Microsoft's market
capitalisation growth from approximately $300 billion in 2014 to over $3
trillion by 2024 occurred alongside — and in part because of — a
communications function that operated as a strategic management partner. Reference: Nadella, S. (2017). Hit Refresh. New York:
HarperBusiness. |
Principles 3
and 4: Integrated and Separate PR Function
Principles 3 and 4 address the structural
position of PR within the organisation. These two principles exist in
productive tension: PR must be integrated — with access to all levels and
functions of the organisation — while remaining structurally separate from
marketing, legal, and other functions that might otherwise absorb or
subordinate it.
When PR is subsumed by marketing, it tends
to become synonymous with product promotion — the full spectrum of stakeholder
relationships (employee, investor, government, community, media) is narrowed to
consumer relationships. When absorbed by legal, communication becomes defensive
by default, optimised for liability management rather than relationship
building. Structural separation preserves the distinctive mandate of PR —
managing the full range of organisational relationships — while integration
ensures it has the information access and cross-functional influence to do so
effectively.
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MODERN EXAMPLE | Unilever — Integrated Corporate Communications
(2010–present) Integration Without Subordination Across 190 Countries Unilever's corporate communications function
demonstrates how integration and structural independence can coexist at
global scale. The communications function has integrated access to all major
business units — consumer goods brands, supply chain operations, investor
relations, and government affairs — while maintaining structural independence
from the marketing function, which manages individual brand communications.
This separation allows corporate communications to manage Unilever's broader
reputational and stakeholder landscape (sustainability, labour practices,
regulatory relationships, NGO engagement) without being directed by the
commercial priorities that shape marketing decisions. When Unilever faced
significant pressure from investors over its acquisition strategy in 2022,
the communications function was able to develop and implement a response that
balanced investor relations requirements with broader stakeholder
communication — a function it could not have performed if subordinated within
the marketing organisation. Reference: Unilever. (2022). Annual Report and Accounts.
Unilever plc. |
Principle 5:
Manager Rather Than Technician
The fifth principle addresses the
leadership of the PR function itself. The Excellence Study found that PR units
headed by managers — professionals with research capability, strategic thinking
capacity, budget management experience, and the ability to facilitate conflict
resolution and navigate ethical dilemmas — consistently outperformed those
headed by technicians, whose expertise is primarily in the craft skills of
writing, production, and media placement.
This distinction is not a judgement on the
value of technical skills — excellent writing, compelling storytelling, and
media relations expertise are genuine and important. But they are insufficient
for leading a PR function that must contribute to strategic management. Without
a manager at its head, the PR function defaults to being treated as a media
relations department — a tactical resource rather than a strategic one.
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The
Communication Technician Skilled in writing, production, and media placement.
Executes tactics once strategy is set. Rarely has a seat at the management
table. Produces excellent outputs but cannot demonstrate their strategic
connection to organisational goals. Valuable as a contributor; insufficient
as a leader of the PR function. |
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The
Communication Manager Conducts research, formulates strategy, manages
budgets, facilitates conflict resolution, and advises on ethical dilemmas.
Has a seat at the management table and actively participates in strategic
decision-making. Measures outcomes, not just outputs. Leads the PR function
as a management discipline. |
Principle 6:
Two-Way Symmetrical Communication
The sixth principle is the methodological
heart of excellence theory. The two-way symmetrical model — in which
organisations genuinely listen to their publics and allow that listening to
change their policies and actions, not merely their messages — has been shown
more effective than any other communication model in resolving conflicts,
preventing problems, and building lasting stakeholder relationships.
The term "symmetrical" does not
mean that all decisions are made by consensus or that publics have veto power
over organisational policy. It means that the communication exchange is
genuinely bidirectional — that organisations collect, analyse, and act on
information about stakeholder values and concerns, and that this information
visibly shapes organisational behaviour. This "mixed-motive" model,
as Grunig also described it, acknowledges that organisations and their publics
have both shared and competing interests — and that the most effective PR finds
the communication ground that serves both simultaneously.
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MODERN EXAMPLE | Netflix — Two-Way Symmetrical Communication with Creators
(2020–2024) Listening That Changes Decisions, Not Just Messages Netflix's ongoing engagement with its creator
community — writers, directors, producers, and actors who are both suppliers
and strategic partners — demonstrates two-way symmetrical communication
operating at the heart of a business model. During the 2023 Writers Guild of
America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strikes, Netflix initially
maintained a defensive posture aligned with the AMPTP industry body. However,
its communications function — recognising the existential risk of prolonged
conflict with the creators on whom its content library depended — developed
intelligence on creator concerns that went beyond the public strike demands.
This intelligence included deep concerns about AI's impact on creative work
and transparency around streaming residual payments. The negotiated
resolution addressed these concerns at a structural level — not merely
through public communications, but through changes to actual contractual
terms. The two-way symmetrical process produced a different outcome from what
either side had originally sought, and a more sustainable one. Reference: WGA. (2023). Minimum Basic Agreement — Summary of
Key Terms. Writers Guild of America. |
Principles 7
and 8: Knowledge and Internal Symmetry
Principles 7 and 8 address two dimensions
of organisational capacity. Principle 7 requires that the PR department possess
the knowledge to actually practise what principle 6 prescribes: research skills
sophisticated enough to understand the values, concerns, and priorities of
diverse publics; negotiation skills; and collaborative problem-solving
capability. Principle 6 without Principle 7 is an aspiration without the means
to achieve it.
Principle 8 turns the symmetrical lens
inward. An organisation that communicates symmetrically with its external
publics but maintains a top-down, one-way information flow with its own
employees is operating with a fundamental contradiction — and the contradiction
shows. Employee-facing communications that ask workers to embody organisational
values that they were given no voice in shaping will be greeted with
scepticism.
Dialogue-based internal communication
systems — in which employees can raise concerns, contribute ideas, and receive
genuine responses from leadership — build the trust, morale, and organisational
alignment that make all external communication more credible. When employees
genuinely believe in the organisation's values and direction, they become its
most powerful ambassadors. When they do not, no external PR investment can
fully compensate.
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MODERN EXAMPLE | Google — Internal Communication Symmetry (2019–2022) When Symmetrical Internal Communication Fails — and
What It Costs Google's internal communication challenges in this
period provide a case study in the gap between symmetrical aspiration and
organisational reality — and its consequences. Google had built a reputation
for employee-centred culture that appeared symmetrical: open forums, internal
social platforms, and a stated commitment to "psychological
safety." But a series of decisions — including changes to employee
policies on internal speech, the departure of senior AI ethics researchers
who claimed their work was suppressed, and the handling of employee protests
over government contracts — revealed a growing asymmetry between the
organisation's stated communication values and its actual receptiveness to
internal dissent. The resulting talent retention challenges, negative media
coverage generated by disgruntled employees, and the formation of a union
among some Google workers demonstrated the reputational and operational cost
of symmetrical internal communication that is performative rather than
genuine. Principle 8 is not a communication channel — it is a cultural
commitment. Reference: Wakabayashi, D. (2021, February). Resignation of
Google Researcher Points to Limits on AI Inquiry. The New York Times. |
Principle 9:
Diversity in All Roles
Principle 9 holds that excellent PR
departments embody diversity across all professional roles — not merely in
entry-level positions, but in research, strategy, management, and senior
leadership. The rationale is both ethical and strategic: diverse teams make
better decisions because they bring a wider range of perspectives, lived
experiences, and cultural knowledge to the analysis of stakeholder concerns.
Decisions made by homogeneous teams are
more susceptible to blind spots — to overlooking the concerns of publics whose
values and experiences differ from those of the decision-makers. A
communication strategy developed by a team that does not reflect the diversity
of the publics it is trying to reach will have systematic weaknesses that a
more diverse team would identify and correct. Inclusivity, as the Excellence
Study found, breeds excellence because it reduces the alienation of excluded or
under-represented publics and produces communications that resonate more
broadly.
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MODERN EXAMPLE | Dove / Unilever — Diversity as the Foundation of Cultural
Resonance Diverse Teams Producing Communications That Reach
Beyond the Homogeneous Default Dove's sustained commitment to representing diverse
body types, ages, skin tones, and cultural backgrounds in its communications
— beginning with the Real Beauty campaign in 2004 and continuing through its
#ShowUs initiative in 2019 and #DetoxYourFeed in 2021 — has consistently
produced campaigns that resonate significantly more broadly than beauty
industry norms. The creative and research teams responsible for these
campaigns have themselves been intentionally diverse, and the diversity of
the team is directly reflected in the sensitivity and authenticity with which
diverse audiences are represented in the work. This is not coincidental:
diverse teams produce communications with fewer blind spots because the team
members themselves represent a wider range of the publics being addressed.
Dove's brand equity growth over two decades — from a commodity soap brand to
one of the world's most trusted consumer brands — is inseparable from this
diversity-driven communication strategy. Reference: Dove / Unilever. (2023). Dove Brand Strategy and
Research Archive. Unilever Corporate Communications. |
Principle 10:
Ethics and Integrity
The final principle was added to the
Excellence framework four years after the original publication — a recognition
by the researchers that ethics deserved to stand alone as a principle of
excellence, not be subsumed within other principles.⁴ Bowen's subsequent
research found that ethics was not merely a constraint on organisational
decision-making but an active driver of effectiveness: organisations that
embedded ethical reasoning into issues management — training it, planning it,
and instilling it throughout the culture — achieved higher levels of
organisational effectiveness than those that did not.⁵
⁴
Vercic, D., Grunig, L. A., & Grunig, J. E. (1996). Global and specific
principles of public relations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
⁵
Bowen, S. A. (2004). Organisational factors encouraging ethical decision
making. Journal of Business Ethics, 52, 311–324.
The ethical principle operates at two
levels. At the individual level, it requires that PR professionals exercise
moral reasoning in their day-to-day work — refusing to disseminate information
they know to be misleading, representing stakeholder values honestly in
management discussions, and maintaining the objectivity and autonomy that
ethical counsel demands. At the organisational level, it requires that ethics
be embedded in the culture — trained, evaluated, rewarded, and modelled from
the top.
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"The rational
analysis of ethical dilemmas could be the most important facilitator of
organisational effectiveness. Ethics is not a soft constraint on PR practice
— it is a hard driver of strategic value." — Bowen, S. A. (2004). Journal of Business Ethics |
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SECTION 04 Case Study: Entergy and
Hurricane Katrina All Ten Principles Under the Most Extreme Test Imaginable |
Theory becomes most legible under pressure.
The case of Entergy Corporation — a large-scale utility operating along the
Gulf Coast of the United States — demonstrates what the ten principles of PR
excellence look like when they are the difference between organisational
survival and collapse.
In the late summer and early autumn of
2005, Entergy weathered the two worst hurricanes in its history within the same
26-day period: Katrina and Rita. The damage was without precedent. Almost two
million homes and businesses lost power. Dozens of generation plants closed.
More than 1,700 structures and 28,892 utility poles were destroyed or damaged.
The company's headquarters in New Orleans was effectively destroyed. Fifteen
hundred employees were scattered across the nation, many of whom had lost their
own homes and possessions.
For the communication team at Entergy, this
was not merely an operational crisis. It was, in the words of Arthur Wiese Jr.,
the company's Vice President of Corporate Communications, "more than just
an operational crisis for a utility company. It also posed major communications
hurdles, directly impacting corporate reputation and the company's relationship
with its employees, its shareholders, and its customers."
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Aug 27 Evacuation Command centre moved to Jackson, MS.
1,500 employees evacuated. |
Aug 29 Katrina Landfall Near New Orleans. Catastrophic
infrastructure damage begins. |
Sep 7 Tent Cities Seven crew support locations
established across Louisiana and Mississippi. |
Sep 23 ENO Bankruptcy Entergy New Orleans files for voluntary
reorganisation. |
Sep 24 Hurricane Rita Category 3 landfall. 750,000 more
customers lose power. |
Oct 2006 Resolution Block grants approved. Rate increase
limited to 7.5%, not predicted 25%. |
Preparation:
Principles 1, 2, and 7 in Action
The first thing the Entergy case study
reveals is that excellence is built before a crisis occurs. Entergy's
communication team had begun preparing for hurricane season months before
Katrina formed. The experience of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 — which had exposed
critical failures in evacuation communication, employee expectations
management, and coordination across business units — had prompted a
comprehensive post-crisis review.
A cross-functional team assembled in spring
2005 identified the key failure points and designed a new communication plan
addressing each one. The IEStormNet website was built to provide a resilient
backup communication channel when conventional systems failed. Supervisors were
briefed through webcasts and given talking points before employee
communications were distributed. Customers were educated through a proactive
campaign about the challenges of storm restoration — managing expectations
before they became grievances.
This preparation was possible only because
the communication function had access to the strategic management process
(Principle 1), had the knowledge to conduct the research, identify the
problems, and design the solutions (Principle 7), and had the empowerment to
implement changes across the organisation (Principle 2). An organisation in
which PR is purely executional cannot prepare in this way — it waits to be told
what to communicate.
Employee
Relations: Principle 8 as an Operational Lifeline
The Entergy case study vindicates Principle
8 — symmetrical internal communication — with unusual clarity. When Katrina
made landfall and conventional communication channels collapsed entirely, the
organisation's ability to maintain any coherent internal communication depended
on the IEStormNet platform built months earlier, supplemented by CEO Wayne
Leonard's daily personal emails to all 14,000 employees, an employee
information hotline updated with recorded messages, and printed newsletters
distributed at crew staging sites.
These were not communications that conveyed
spin or managed optics. Leonard's letters addressed the human reality directly
— "Please work safely and know that this organisation of caring people is
working night and day to help you pull your life back together." This is
symmetrical internal communication under conditions of maximum emotional and
operational stress: honest, personal, consistent, and oriented toward the
wellbeing of the employee rather than the reputation of the organisation.
Entergy also took action that matched its
words. Tent cities were established at seven locations for crew welfare. The
Power of Hope Fund was created within days of the storm, raising over $4
million for employees and customers. Operation ReSTORE Hope established
distribution centres for clothing and household supplies. Redeployment
coordinators helped displaced employees navigate new work locations. These were
not communication campaigns — they were demonstrations of organisational
values, and the communication team helped design and execute both the actions
and the communications about them simultaneously.
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MODERN EXAMPLE | Entergy — Power of Hope Fund and Operation ReSTORE Hope
(2005) Actions Proving Words — The Deepest Form of Symmetrical
Communication When Entergy established the Power of Hope Fund
within days of Katrina's landfall — with an initial corporate investment of
$1 million — it demonstrated something that no press release could achieve:
that the organisation's stated care for employees and customers was backed by
material action, not just communication. The fund eventually raised over $4
million from donors worldwide, amplified by a two-week media campaign across
television, radio, print, and digital channels. Operation ReSTORE Hope went further
— creating physical distribution centres staffed by employee volunteers,
enabling more than 2,000 employees whose lives had been devastated to access
immediate practical support. The communication surrounding these initiatives
was powerful precisely because the initiatives themselves were genuine.
Symmetrical communication, at its most potent, is not a communication
strategy. It is an organisational action strategy that generates
communication value as a consequence of authentic conduct. Reference: Entergy Corporation. (2005). Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita Final Executive Summary Report, October 18, 2005. |
Media
Relations: Principle 6 and the "One Voice" Strategy
Entergy's media relations strategy during
the Katrina restoration exemplifies two-way symmetrical communication applied
to the media as a strategic public. Rather than managing the media at arm's
length — controlling access, limiting information flow, and responding
defensively to critical coverage — Entergy adopted what it called the "One
Voice" strategy combined with radical transparency.
The company opened its command centre to
journalists, reserved helicopter seats for photographers accompanying damage
assessment flights, and granted virtually every interview request. Forty-five
communicators maintained consistent, updated talking points distributed up to
four times daily — ensuring that consistency of message was achieved not
through centralised control but through information saturation of all
spokespersons. Over 50 news releases and hundreds of conferences calls produced
a steady, accurate information flow that the media — already sceptical of
institutional responses to Katrina in the wake of the government's failures —
could not easily characterise as evasive.
The result was coverage that portrayed
Entergy's restoration workforce as heroes rather than as the representatives of
a corporate body failing its customers. This was not spin — it was the
communication consequence of genuine action. By taking care of its workers
visibly and effectively, Entergy generated the human interest narratives that
transformed media coverage from adversarial to affirming.
The Federal
Funding Battle: Principles 1 and 2 at the Policy Level
After Katrina, Entergy New Orleans (ENO)
faced a financial reality that threatened its ability to serve its customers: a
drastic reduction in its customer base (only 24% of customers had returned to
New Orleans two months after the storm) alongside catastrophic infrastructure
repair costs. The company filed for voluntary bankruptcy reorganisation and
sought federal funding.
The battle for federal funding — in which
the Bush Administration initially refused to include ENO in Katrina relief
packages on the grounds that private utilities did not normally receive federal
disaster assistance — required exactly the kind of government relations and
public affairs capability that Principles 1 and 2 enable. The communication
function had to simultaneously manage financial analyst and investor
communication, media relations around the bankruptcy filing, government
relations with state and federal officials, and customer communication about
potential rate increases.
By November 2006, a combination of federal
funding, block grants from the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and improved
population return rates allowed a rate increase of only 7.5% — far less than
the 25% that had been projected as the worst-case scenario. This outcome was
not automatic — it was the product of sustained, strategic communication with
government stakeholders over more than a year. The eventual result included a
built-in $75 million storm reserve for future hurricanes, institutionalising
the lessons of Katrina into Entergy's financial and operational planning.
Lessons for
Excellence Theory
The Entergy case study reinforces the
Excellence Study's core findings at every level. Preparation, not reaction, is
the condition for effective crisis communication (Principles 1, 2, 7). The
internal public — employees — must be treated as the most important public,
even when external demands are most urgent (Principle 8). Transparency with the
media, even in adversity, builds more durable credibility than controlled
communication (Principle 6). A communication function embedded in strategic
management can anticipate, prepare, and adapt; one that is merely executional
can only respond (Principles 1–5). And throughout, the ethical commitment to
employees, customers, and communities was both the right thing to do and the
most strategically effective thing — demonstrating that ethics and
effectiveness are not in tension but are mutually reinforcing (Principle 10).
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"The focus on one
voice, the accessibility of key executives, and the recognition that its
employees were the most critical public for communication all enabled Entergy
to emerge from the chaos of Katrina and Rita and regain its footing as a
profitable and sustainable organisation." — Entergy Corporation — Post-Katrina Communication Review |
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SECTION 05 Applying the Principles in
Practice Excellence as a System, Not a Checklist |
The ten principles of PR excellence are not
a checklist to be completed and filed. They are an interconnected system — each
principle strengthening the others, and each weakening the whole when absent.
An organisation that embodies all ten creates a PR function capable of genuine
strategic contribution. An organisation that embodies six or seven creates a PR
function that is better than most but structurally limited in specific,
predictable ways.
How organisations measure excellence
depends on the industry, the size of the organisation, its goals, and whether
those goals are measured through the satisfaction of strategic constituencies
or through goal attainment. But the Excellence Study demonstrated something
remarkable: the ten generic principles predicted PR excellence consistently
regardless of these variables. A small nonprofit in Slovenia, a large utility
in Louisiana, and a global technology company in Seattle all benefit from the
same structural conditions for excellence.
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Applying
the Excellence Framework — A Self-Assessment for PR Leaders |
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①
Does your PR function have a seat in strategic planning discussions — before
decisions are made, not after? ②
Does your CCO report directly to the CEO, or is PR filtered through another
function? ③
Does your PR function have access to all levels and functions of the
organisation without encroachment from marketing or legal? ④ Is
PR structurally separate from marketing, with its own defined
responsibilities and reporting lines? ⑤ Is
your PR function led by a strategic manager — not just an excellent writer —
with research, budget, and leadership skills? ⑥
Does your communication genuinely incorporate stakeholder feedback in ways
that change organisational decisions, not just messaging? ⑦
Does your team have the research skills, negotiation capability, and ethical
reasoning capacity to practise symmetrical PR? ⑧
Are your internal communications truly two-way — with genuine mechanisms for
employee voice to reach and influence leadership? ⑨
Does your PR team reflect the diversity of the publics you are trying to
reach, at all levels of the function? ⑩ Is
ethics planned, trained, evaluated, and rewarded throughout your organisation
— not merely stated in a policy document? |
The more "yes" answers this
self-assessment yields, the more the organisation's PR function is positioned
for genuine excellence. Each "no" identifies a structural opportunity
— a specific, evidence-based change that the Excellence Study's research
predicts will improve PR effectiveness.
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MODERN EXAMPLE | Patagonia — All Ten Principles Embodied in a Single
Organisation Excellence as an Integrated System Rather Than a Set of
Individual Achievements Patagonia may be the most instructive contemporary
illustration of all ten excellence principles operating as an integrated
system. Strategic management involvement (Principle 1): communications and
environmental policy are co-developed at the founder/ownership level.
Executive empowerment (Principle 2): the CCO function operates with direct
access to leadership and shapes both brand and operational strategy.
Integration without subordination (Principles 3 and 4): communications spans
product development, supply chain, retail, and digital without being subsumed
by any single function. Manager leadership (Principle 5): Patagonia's
communications function is led by strategic managers capable of research,
policy analysis, and cross-functional influence. Two-way symmetrical
communication (Principle 6): environmental stakeholder groups, customers, and
employees genuinely influence product decisions, environmental commitments,
and operational policies. Research knowledge (Principle 7): Patagonia
conducts sophisticated primary research on supply chain impacts, consumer
values, and environmental outcomes. Internal symmetry (Principle 8): employee
voice shapes policies on activism, political engagement, and working
conditions. Diversity (Principle 9): consciously embedded across all roles.
Ethics (Principle 10): operationalised through Patagonia's Worn Wear
programme, environmental internship support, and the 2022 decision to
transfer ownership to a climate-focused trust. The business result: Patagonia
generates approximately $1.5 billion in annual revenue with extraordinary
brand loyalty and negligible advertising expenditure — the market value of
excellence in PR. Reference: Patagonia. (2023). Annual Environmental and Social
Initiatives Report. |
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SECTION 06 Conclusion Excellence Is a Structural Choice |
Grunig's Excellence Study established, with
rigour that has not been equalled in the PR literature, that the effectiveness
of a public relations function is not primarily a function of talent, budget,
or circumstance. It is a function of structure — the structural design of the
function, its structural relationship to senior management, its structural
commitment to two-way communication, and the structural embedding of diversity
and ethics throughout the organisation.
The ten generic principles are not
aspirational ideals — they are empirically derived predictors of PR excellence
that hold across cultures, industries, and organisational types. Each of them
is actionable. Each can be implemented by any organisation that chooses to
prioritise PR excellence. And the Entergy case study demonstrates that these
principles are not merely theoretical constructs that produce better media
coverage or higher stakeholder satisfaction scores — under conditions of
extreme operational stress, they are the difference between organisational
survival and failure.
The organisations that have achieved the
greatest PR excellence in the modern era — whether Microsoft navigating the AI
transition, Patagonia demonstrating that commercial success and ethical purpose
are complementary rather than competing, Netflix managing its creator
relationships through a historic labour dispute, or Entergy restoring power to
two million customers after back-to-back catastrophic hurricanes — share a
common architecture. They have all, in different ways and to different degrees,
built their communication functions according to the principles that the
Excellence Study identified three decades ago and that subsequent research has
continued to validate.
The question for every organisation is not
whether the ten principles matter. The evidence that they matter is clear and
consistent. The question is whether the organisation chooses to build the
structural conditions for excellence — or whether it settles for adequacy, and
waits for the crisis that will reveal, at the worst possible moment, the cost
of that choice.
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"The more of these
factors that are present in a public relations function, the more excellent
that function should be. The ten principles apply to any type of
organisation, any size of pursuit, any industry, and across cultures. They
are not aspirational. They are architectural." — Grunig Excellence Theory — Research Synthesis |
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