Values matter – even in public relations

Nope. This isn’t another get-rich-quick article on how having corporate values will make your organization successful or how they’re somehow going to manipulate your employees to do better work for you.

Because those are not good reasons to have corporate values. Values aren’t about your bottom line. They’re about much more than that. Can they lead to more money and inspired employees? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.

The true value of your corporate values, however, isn’t about money or inspired employees. They’re about you, about your system of beliefs, about how you’re going to conduct business regardless of the short-term impact on your company’s financial situation. In other words, you will be “honest & ethical” even if it means you are going to lose that multimillion dollar deal or your stock price is going to lose 25 percent of its value in a day. 

If that’s true of your corporate values, then you’ve done a stand-up job formulating them. In addition, it means that your corporate values are the foundation of your reputation. You truly believe in them and believe they matter not only to your organization, but also to you as a person. You believe that if you compromise on those values, you would have a hard time sleeping at night and feel morally convicted.

It also means, you’re ready to start an authentic and real values-driven public relations function at your organization – or rebuild the function you have in place. Public relations only works long-term if it’s a values driven function at your organization.

Without values playing an important role in your public relations function, they are manipulated by public opinion and cease to be values. The core of who you are becomes something entirely different because a certain group of people dislike your statements or actions that come from your values. And the only reason you compromised or changed your value was because you mistakenly believed that you would lose money in the long-term from the upset group or group of people.

Unless your value is inherently flawed or bad (i.e. we will lie, cheat and steal to make a sale), it shouldn’t change because you’re going to lose a few sales or even millions of dollars. If it changes because of that, it wasn’t a value in the first place. It was a tool to increase sales or to manipulate your employees.

On the flip side, you can use your values in a positive manner for public relations purposes. Everything you say and do should derive from and speak your values into the public sphere. The messages you send to the public through words and actions should be the embodiment of the values that are at the core of your business.

At Jakel Communications, a Denver publicrelations agency, we can help you build a public relations function and platform that is values-driven. Give us a call or send an email.