Charles Ikedikwa Soeze,
Organisation is where people work to achieve set–goals and objectives. The definition is simple because any organisation is a difficult thing to manage, in view of the fact that any organisation is made up of different views, training, orientation, problems, family background, religion, culture, personal vision, personal mission, personal goals and idea of how things to be done.
Interestingly, in an organisation some people believe wrongly or rightly that they are the best. As a result, they only want their own ideas to be implemented. Even in the public service, some administration will put in oblivion the Public Service Rules (PSRs) and Financial Regulations (FRs) and went on to apply their own ideas which leads to power drunk.
In the civil/public service, some persons see it as their personal estate and do not take into cognizance the provisions of S.104 of the Criminal Code Act (CCA) which makes abuse of office a serious offence punishment with imprisonment. Abusing the right of another is guilty of a misdemeanor and liable to imprisonment for two years. If this is done or directed done for purposes of gain, he is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment of three years. Where there is communication incommunicado, it leads to an issue, from here if not properly managed, it will extend to conflict and crisis. A similar case is where a public servant was arrested by his direct boss without the approval of his Chief Executive/Accounting Officer and the governing council over an anonymous petition which he claimed was against him. It is clearly stated in the Public Service Rules (PSRs) beginning from 1974 and the PSRs as revised 2008 that anonymous petition must not be entertained. In view of the fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, an innocent person was identified may be they used a soothsayer, such person was then suspended without fair hearing as provided for in section 36 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This, I think and believe is excessive power that was displayed probably he is from a certain part of the country we always say they are “powerful and born to rule”, however, this is a dangerous dichotomy and can lead to crisis in an organization that is, not following due process.
It is a well–known fact that no organisation can survive under chaos, if it does, there will be little or no progress. The organisation has its internal and external publics and as a result, they have a stake in the organisation. No doubt, the stakeholders have been loosely used by corporate objectives, just as the term total quality management (TQM) has been going through the same problem. Whatever the state of the usage of the word, it cannot change the strategic importance to the issue at hand.
The stakeholder being people or someone whose interest will be affected due to success or failure of an organisation cannot be ignored in the scheme of things. Stakeholders can be the following; shareholders, employees, government, community, customers, suppliers/contractors, family of employees, opinion holders, mass media (print/broadcast), competitors, etc such stakeholders will play a very important role in ensuring the success or otherwise of an organisation.
No doubt, performance can only be achieved in an organised setting. One cannot be organised if there is no team spirit one cannot do the work alone, even if you are generally effective. Some aspects of the job must be delegated. You must get along with people to achieve result. If you cannot build team, you cannot succeed as a manager. In other words, no one can function without some group or interpersonal relationship with people.
An organisation must have a mission that is from the mission a statement must emerge, which will serve as a guide to the internal and external publics. The mission statement is a modern development which business use in keeping the future in mind. In other words, it must have the interest of the relevant publics. Everyone working in an organisation must be committed to the mission statement of the organisation. Such mission statement must not be too long so that it will not be looked at with suspicion. Importantly, it must not be something that the organisation cannot achieve, if it sounds like a mere decoration, such organisation will be viewed with suspicion.
Also, the vision of how we want the organisation to emerge must be collectively agreed upon by the team members. For people who later join the organisation, they should be taken through the vision. One thing is that vision is known as the strategy. To come up with an acceptable strategy, certain issues will come up of which the PR executive will effectively contribute. Consequently, we must consider the following, the product or services of the organisation; the operating environment; the objectives of the organization; stakeholders; availability of resources like finance, labour etc; unpredictability of global environment of today.
For any business to succeed, you have to work with people you think you can cope with. However, it is said that there is no perfection in humanity. That notwithstanding, we should endeavour as much as practicable to establish some character/behavior we can tolerate in any outfit. The following should be taken into consideration, family and social background, age, educational attainment etc. There might be problem if we cannot instill the following in all staffers; tolerance, understanding, human relations, trust, team spirit, goals and leadership.
For staffers to perform competently well, they must be well motivated. The environment where they work must motivate them. They must be given enough tools with which to work. To this end therefore, reward and punishment are absolutely necessary. When we reward hardworking staffers, we also reprimand those whose performances are abysmally low. Such a measure, if taken at the appropriate time, will encourage the dedicated workers to continue to do their best. It is appropriate to say that once something go wrong, everything might go wrong. For instance; the business environment, political situation, technology, competitors, wrong or rough forecast, staffers, monitoring of strategy implementation stages. The SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, opportunities and Threats) analysis will assist in planning process. Nevertheless, an organisation must be willing and ready to take some risks. It is not every time that the risk will pay off, but it must be a calculated risk for the error to be accepted, if there is any blunder along the line.
Unarguably, a public relations plan ought to be built around the underlying philosophy, personality and the fundamental objectives of an organistaion, taking into consideration the amount of money available to execute it. It must also reflect the differing characteristics of target publics in order to harmonise their interests with those of the organisation. Naturally, the plan must show that the PR practitioner has a clear picture of available media of communication and their relevance in reaching every target public. A sense of appropriate timing should inform the details of the plan. Regularly, flow of communication must link the organisation and its publics, so that there will hardly be any need for fire-brigade activity. Finally, a feed-back mechanism is an absolute necessity in a PR plan. With all these as requirements in PR planning, it is not surprising that models have evolved over time.
As a result, Herbert Lloyd in his book “Public Relations: An Introduction”, 1974 English Universities press at page 55, quoted by Salu (1994 : 113) gives us a three point planning model that is, research, plan, action. Frank Jefkins, a prolific writer has talked about the six-point models. The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) prefers a seven-point planning model as follows; appreciation of the situation, the corporate positioning statement, definition of objectives, analysis of the public choice of media and techniques, budgeting and budgetary control as well as evaluation of public relations practices.
In view of the fact that public relations is the nerve centre of sound business decisions, a PR programme must be well planned like other functional areas of business. Models of planning dictate a disciplined approach to the planning process and a great deal of thinking with a thorough understanding of appropriate techniques, financial accountability and regular evaluation.
In order to avoid crisis in an organisation, the PR Executive should be able to identify areas that can pose problems in the future to his organisation especially industrial relations problems like strikes, demonstrations, lockouts, etc. he should also be able to identify areas of conflict internally. In this case, he should look at the employees, management and board members. Having identified the crucial publics, he should be able to know conflicts that are peculiar to such publics that is, external publics, people outside the organisation. We must not allow it to get to crisis stage, because it consists an embarrassment to the human race. It is threatening the survival of many businesses. According to Professor Babatunde Folarin (of blessed memory), one-time head of the department of mass communication, Delta State University (DELSU) Abraka, issues beget conflict and conflict beget crisis. Before it gets to crisis stage the PR Executive whether in government or non-governmental organisations should be able to act fast and intelligently to always avoid crisis, which can ruin an organisation.
Dr. Charles Ikedikwa Soeze, is a mass communication scholar and a media and public relations consultant.
