Everything's Changed

A Retrospective on the Evolving Field of Communication

The idea of "arguing with myself on paper" came from a friend during a trying time in my life. Its cathartic value helped me see myself, others and events with sharpened clarity. Soon, without realizing it, I'd become a journal junkie.

So, when Communication World editor Gloria Gordon invited me to turn a retrospective eye on this dynamic, labyrinthine, oftentimes paradoxical field of ours over the last quarter century, the journal format seemed to fit.

What follows are one man's reflections, for better or worse, absent attempts at answering the unanswerable Great Questions. Perhaps, though, an open-minded reading may help you find your own answers.

THURSDAY

What the heck's a retrospective?

Time, especially 25 years' worth, can be misleading. How to approach it? As philosopher? Pundit? Critic? Historian? Psychologist? Practitioner? Academic? Schizophrenic?

I've read a number of thought-provoking, millennium-transition pieces lately, each offering astute, in-your-face advice on the cutting-edge issues of the day: new media technologies/distribution, globalization, strategic thinking, social upheaval, shifting ethics, role expansion, skills/competencies training, and the list continues.

Not to be accused of being a crowd follower, I'll try slicing into the underbelly of a few issues and just tickle your imagination.

SATURDAY

Real vs. imagined change -- any difference?

How different is my role today from when I started out as a newsletter editor in the '70s? Is what I do and how I do it altogether different, or just modified slightly? I used to write articles on an IBM Selectric typewriter; I used to physically enter a library to do research; I used to think it impossible anyone weaned on communication theory could become a VP or CEO. "The more things change, the more they stay the same" -- an old saw fraught with meaning, particularly in sizing up the communication field today. The implication's that core change occurs about as often as a Chicago Cubs-Boston Red Sox base-ball-game world series (last played in 1918), yet the popular perception, colored by time and lots of incremental changes, is something else again. It can seem that everything is different when, in fact, only a few things on the surface and fringes really are.

I've noticed the same thing in baseball, a game that's expanding internationally like wildfire. As a sport/business, it's undergone a litany of external changes the past 50 years -- lucrative TV contracts, free agency, stratospheric player salaries, fancy publicly financed stadiums -- and yet, at heart, the game itself is the same game it's always been: throwing, hitting, catching and running on a grass and dirt field shaped like a diamond.

WEDNESDAY

"The medium is the message" is the wrong message.

Sometimes we think change is bigger and better than it is. A cogent example is the explosion of media technologies, which has spawned a new era of instantaneous, interactive, ultra-direct communication channels. Their proliferation deludes us, understandably, into thinking media are all-powerful, dusting off sociologist Marshall McLuhan's catchy claim that "the medium is the message." From there, it's a small leap to the erroneous conclusion that communication itself -- that is, the communication process -- has been turned on its head and permanently reconfigured.

Though I acknowledge that media selection has risen in importance, I nonetheless reject McLuhan's assertion of media's dominating influence. For my money, the medium is the medium and little more than a glorified delivery boy, however sophisticated, speedy, and garnished with bells and whistles -- a controversial position vociferously debated in these days of e-mail and MTV. As we step into a new millennium, media effects, whatever the research to date and our innate perceptions, is a subject fraught with ripening implications deserving our vigilant attention.

If I've learned anything after 25 years of ups and downs in this quirky profession, it's that the medium isn't usually the solution -- or the problem. More often than not, the problem's an inappropriate message or, most likely, a misdefined or mistargeted audience. Didn't we use to cling to the now-debunked "magic bullet" theory that message is everything?

Most students of communication know that audience is far and away the central driver -- the quintessential key -- in the communication process (all decisions flow from it), and the most likely suspect when things go wrong. As a multi-element sequential process, communication works best when all elements are aligned and in sync; if even one is overlooked or miscalculated, results suffer. Yet that said, the most easily substitutable element and least apt to alter the outcome substantially is channel, or medium.

THURSDAY

It's the process that's sacred.

What we can count on not changing is the basic process of communication, still our road map when we lose our way. Save for a few tweaks here and there, it's the same model we dozed through in Communication 101. It's knowing that process (not to be confused with the products that fuel the process) and being able to adapt it to alternating conditions that provide a perpetual compass, much as the diagnostic process guides medical doctors and the inverted pyramid

and five Ws and H do journalists.

Years ago I thought the process 1-2-3 simple - source-message-medium-noise-audience-feedback, same deal every time -- but the more I learn about it, the more convinced I am it's anything but simple.

The fundamentals, the process, got us here because they are, well, just that -- fundamental to everything we think and then do. So, I figure that if we stick close to them, we'll never be too far from home.

FRIDAY

Professionals vs. academics: When will the twain meet?

As a professional and an academic (or is it a professional/academic?), I'm continually appalled, and baffled, by the gap (chasm?) that insulates these wings. At the University of Arkansas, the gap between the business and communication school buildings is no more than 10 yards. Yet when I arrived there as MBA director, I found the faculties were complete strangers to one another -- the buildings could be in different countries.

Most disturbing isn't the blaring contradiction (aren't we the ones who bring disparates together?), but the terrible waste of unshared knowledge and know-how because folks cut from the same cloth and who know better allow their differences to divert them from discovering the vast common ground sitting idle between them. Could it be a case of "do as I say, not as I do"? Wouldn't we be rushing to advise a little open-minded, active listening to start bridging the gap?

Sure, professionals and academics attend the same conferences, occasionally sit on the same committees and sip cocktails at the same receptions, yet they instantly retreat to distinctly segregated and shielded worlds, to which they give their primary allegiance.

Especially disconcerting to me is both parties' claim that they abhor the so-called "gap" and regret the damage it does to the cause, yet, again, the situation goes virtually unconfronted, thus unaltered. If only recognition of a need to correct a mistake were enough.

SATURDAY

Brothers and sisters fight, but in the end...

While a member of the IABC Research Foundation board I observed first-hand the downside of the practitioner-scholar rift. It was during the crunch days of the high-profile "Excellence" project, when discussions over details and direction among practitioners on the board and researchers on the project team were at their peak. This process hampered progress and, at times, seemed to threaten the project's survival -- the clash was in overcoming differences in perspective, vocabulary and goals. Fortunately, to their credit, perhaps because they were forced either to find ways to mesh or to share the badge of failure, the allies/adversaries came to understand the other's motives better, found a common vocabulary, replaced contention with compromise, and applied the communication process they'd lost sight of.

Memory returns me to a conversation I had with Ron Rhody, then-senior VP of communication for Bank of America, in his San Francisco office, maybe 10 years ago. "If you could make one change in this field of ours, what would it be?" I asked him, as we peered out over the Golden Gate. Unhesitating, he picked up a copy of Public Relations Review (a semi-scholarly "journal of research and comment") from his desk, waved it at me, and spoke volumes, "Start a newsletter that translates the concepts, theories and data in here into language and terms I can apply to my job."

Though Ron's wish remains ungranted today, the idea behind it is just as compelling: Seek an issue, a challenge, a need (i.e., opportunities) that touches both camps' priorities and requires ongoing nose-to-nose contact, such as the "Excellence" project's quest to prove public relations' true effect and explain why, and eventually differences will soften and blur, understanding will depose intransigence, and minds will meet.

TUESDAY

Attitude's all in our heads.

In my opinion, the most meaningful change in this field over the last 25 years is largely unheralded and unnoticed, maybe because of its tortoise speed. I'm talking attitude -- namely, our gut-level belief in communication's ultimate value (hidden and added), along with a belief in ourselves, that we're competent, savvy, and just brash enough to carry it off. The attitude turnaround has been nothing short of 180 degrees: in the' 70s, as we sought to climb the greased corporate ladder, we asked permission with bowed heads to offer our expertise and counsel. Today, as we leapfrog upward, we practically claim an inalienable right to share what we know, outraged when we re excluded from decisions and our advice goes unheeded.

On balance, I'd rather believe in myself a tad too much than a tad too little. Put another way, if I don't believe in my import, how can I expect, or ever hope to persuade, others to?

Many CEOs I've interviewed in my research have confided disappointment in their top communicators for being too easily intimidated by the CEO and executive peers when defending their recommendations during staff debates. Is that a lack of conviction in their position, or an inability to "sell" their case to entrenched skeptics?

FRIDAY

Since when does accountability apply to us?

Indeed, the widely bandied issue of accountability (in real life more avoided than embraced) -- measuring in some believable form the tangible impact of performance -- has nagged our field since the Bernays days, but never more than today when every business function is being pressed to justify its bottom-line "value" or face extinction. This, I believe, we must view as a golden "opportunity" -- the ultimate challenge, perhaps -- to demonstrate our effectiveness that's often called into question. Some opportunities are missed because they're perceived as insurmountable obstacles.

"Measurement" was the impetus behind my decision to begin doctoral studies after eight years in the trenches: I realized if I wanted to be able to prove communication s effect when budget time rolled around, then I had to become a more adept researcher/evaluator.

Four years later, my dissertation study generated solid empirical evidence that communication in its various forms, but especially management-initiated communication, significantly affects employees' job satisfaction and performance (see Communication World, November, 1984). As is typical of most research, it raised more questions than it answered, and I've been digging in that garden ever since, attempting, along with others, to make the definitive case for communication's influence.

THURSDAY

Rubbing shoulders with angels isn't always enough.

No issue today titillates and confounds the field as does measurement, that blending of science, art and persuasion theory. Moreover, it may, more than any other issue, hold the key to our status as a profession/discipline, so it's a card we can't afford to undervalue or underplay.

The funny thing about measurement is, though, that we now have the tools and expertise to go along with a body of literature touting communication's influence, yet we're still not taken seriously in some business quarters (communication quarters, too?). Could it be that having the numbers and being on the side of the angels still doesn't guarantee convincing others of our virtue? Winning minds, I'm afraid, isn't simply a matter of being right and having the "goods to sell." You still have to sell them to those who may not want to hear or believe. It's a persuasive process demanding repetition, which takes time, and tenacity, which takes patience, and an unflagging focus, which takes concentration.

SATURDAY

What's in a name, anyway?

IABO calls the field "business communication," a term that emphatically links communication and business; Siamese twins unable to survive if separated. That all communication is rooted in business soil, regardless of industry or type of organizati[acute{o}]n, has never been more true than in this age of global economies and e-commerce.

But do we see ourselves as business people or communicators? Are the labels mutually exclusive? Do accountants and marketers and HR folks ask the same questions? What do we call ourselves and allow others to call us? Does it matter whether we're tagged media relations, employee communication, public relations, investor relations, corporate affairs or integrated marketing communication? Do certain labels showcase our limits, and others our versatility?

In theory, only what we do should matter, but, in reality, as anybody in business for more than a week knows, it doesn't work that way. Who we're perceived to be by those whose perceptions matter is the reality of who we are.

Integrating business and communication, the people and the principles, has been high on my priority list for years since attending IABC's first-ever communication management seminar held in Tarrytown, N.Y., in the mid '70s, along with 20 or so other infant "managers." Veterans Roy Foltz, Mike Emanuel and Bobbi Resnick showed us how ignorant we were about management and business as living, breathing concepts and began educating us for a role and a world we barely understood -- a turning point in the field, hindsight suggests.

Since Tarrytown, I've perceived myself as a business person who specializes in communication, not the other way around; not a trivial distinction, for it's redirected my perspective and helped me gain entry to previously off-limits sanctums of the corporate world.

MONDAY

Education is the fiercest battle front.

So much of who we are and later become goes back to our basic training, when our vision of ourselves and the world is formed. My ongoing frustration as an educator in both communication and business schools hasn't been too much change, but too little, too slow. The same curricula persist while the marketplace demands business-savvier communicators and communication-savvier business people.

Recruiters have complained for years that the principal weakness in public relations/communication graduates is, after weak writing skills, ignorance of business issues/concepts/nomenclature and organizational life. And business leaders moan about business graduates' inability to write and speak and argue clearly. An example is the CEO of a major company telling me he wants MBA grads who are "articulate and persuasive and can read a balance sheet -- in that order."

Integration of biz and comm is underway and gaining momentum, my and others' research suggests (see June/July 1997 Communication World), but still taking baby steps.

I might've seen the future recently in a brochure handed to me at a recent conference. It announced a new two-year Dutch program (Hogeschool van Utrecht) called "Integrated Communication Management" that meshes business communication (public relations, marketing) and hard-core business subjects (e.g., statistics, economics, information science, organizational behavior) equally. So it seems we do know what's needed.

THURSDAY

Time to raise our collective voice?

Maybe it's time we move from single voices yelping about change to collective action representing the entire profession; galvanize resources, credibility and chutzpah, and pry open the eyes and ears of those whose backing we need to move forward. For years, our case-by-case efforts to elbow communication into MBA curricula have met limited success. For a host of reasons, B-school powers-that-be are showing increasing receptivity to integrating communication, though they're uncertain what to do and how to do it: thus our opportunity to assist, guide, influence, partner, undo the status quo.

I'd like to see a task force of the best and brightest communication educators and professionals, sponsored by a group of our most prestigious bodies (IABC, PRSA, AEJMC, Burson-Marsteller), charged with designing a communication/business education package (e.g., curricula, suggested readings, case examples, expert counseling, faculty roster) tailored to B-schools' needs and shortcomings. And then offer it with open arms (and appropriate strings, of course) to B-school deans and MBA directors.

Who among our elite institutions will step forward first?

Being constructively critical isn't pessimism -- quite the contrary. That we're willing to look ourselves in the mirror with eyes wide open -- witness this piece -- signifies a healthy ego, and assurance of a secure future.

J. David Pincus, Ph.D, APR, vagabond practitioner-turned-academic-turned-writer, is currently finishing work on a novel about the effects of change on people's home and work lives. He's also a professor of communication and MBA program director, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

COPYRIGHT 1999 International Association of Business Communicators
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