Joann Ellison Rodgers

PIO Forum

by Joann Ellison Rodgers

Influence peddling

The public affairs director at Hopkins Medicine, Elaine Freeman, has pointed out frequently, and correctly, I believe, that some institutional policies become de facto only when situations erupt and we communications professionals are asked to write about them for internal or external use. This “policy by press release” approach, the institutional equivalent of learning the hard way, is familiar to PR practitioners and PIOs everywhere. Controversial, complex or sensitive processes and decisions stay tidily cached in a select, high-level circle of cerebral cortices--doing very well, thank you--until someone outside the circle (the press, trustees, government agency, regulators, your name here) demands or needs to know how something works or what the rule is.

This phenomenon fuels hours of collegial entertainment and sotto voce declarations of “I could have told you so.” But it could more usefully suggest to us a means of making ourselves of greater value, both to those who pay our salaries and to the press and public.

I would argue that it is both a proper role, and a responsibility, for communications professionals to be more than just instruments for explanation at the 11th hour. In a perfect world, we would be up to our figuratively ink-stained necks in the decision-making process. By this, I do not mean to suggest that we should be making executive decisions and policies. Not our job. What we should be is actively employed in influencing and informing decision-making by providing public, press, and other communications context to leadership decisions and policy-making.

A recent example of what I mean occurred in my own bailiwick during deliberations by the hospital’s patient safety committee. Lawyers, faculty physicians, ethicists, risk managers, nurses, and others were discussing multi-paged drafts of a new and sensitively nuanced policy document governing what patients should and/or must be told in the event of a medical error. What I was able to bring to the discussion was a reality check: What, I asked, will this policy look and sound like when it is translated into a simple brochure or statement that someone with an eighth-grade literacy level can read? Should the institution consider a preface to the full policy statement that puts it in historical context so that the press and public understand that Hopkins has always supported disclosure and that what is new is that this policy is now being made explicit? My contribution didn’t dramatically alter the core of the policy, but I think it helped policy makers anticipate and prepare for the impact of their decisions and language on those outside the inner circle.

I’ve written previously in this space [see SW, Winter 2001-02] of the value for PIOs of having a seat on the crisis-management team, so that communications related to scientific misconduct, human research protections, malpractice, and the like, can be accurate and timely. Increasingly, that kind of role is recognized for PIOs. But regular access to the policy-making apparatus may be even more valuable, influencing not just language used in crises, but in crafting creative communications about innovations as well.

How such influence can occur where you are is in great part up to the culture inside your university, medical center, corporation, agency, or laboratory. And going for it should always be tempered with the caveat that the demands from the media for honest brokerage, reliability, and credibility still require “plausible deniability.” We shouldn’t be privy to, or be looking for, every piece of information or thinking that goes into governing our workplaces. Much that goes on is out of necessity privileged, private, proprietary, or none of our business. But becoming actively involved in institutional management, rather than merely being flies on the wall, can make us more efficient and effective when it really counts. (It’s also, in my opinion, exciting.)

Experience suggests that no matter what the culture in your institution, active influence peddling won’t happen without your asking, or even nagging about it. Find a champion-someone who knows you and already serves on a committee-and lobby her to bring you on board. Then make yourself useful. Volunteering helps. The academy, especially, depends on volunteer service from faculty and administrators on a variety of operations and planning committees. It helps their careers, so why not yours? Raise your hand. It’s a start.

One of my first successful ventures into this world many years ago was to offer to serve on a mission statement-revision task force, where I wound up drafting the new statement. Committee wordsmithing wasn’t a whole lot of fun, but listening to who thought what about Hopkins’s proper place in the world was fascinating. Bringing me into close contact with the hierarchical processes that inform the lives of policy and decision makers was a MasterCard moment: priceless. That’s one way relationships are forged that can last a professional lifetime and increase access to important information we all need to do our jobs effectively.

These days, executive and senior staff members in my office are not only invited to many institutional management meetings; they also sit as members of a handful of key standing committees. Among them: the hospital’s management committee and performance improvement council, the patient safety committee, the center for emergency preparedness and response, the bioterrorism task force, the health insurance privacy and protection act working group, and the dean’s operating group. Getting there took time, patience, scut work, and a high tolerance for frustration. It’s also a stretch to say that we are anything beyond “edge” players. But where creativity and enterprise are valued, people at the edges can contribute critical skills and make real differences in what policies comes out in those press releases.

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Joann Ellison Rodgers is director of media relations in the Office of Communications and Public Affairs at Johns Hopkins Medicine.