Erika Joseph
July 21, 2010
The Stockholm Accords: A Critical Analysis
The Stockholm Accords (SA) is an ambitious project by the Global Alliance of Public
Relations and Corporate Communication to “enhance and affirm the central role of Public
Relations and Communication Management.” Although insightful, I expect it will face
significant challenges in the areas of comprehension, feasibility, diction, credibility,
accountability and evaluation. In this paper, I will address each areas impact on the adoption of
the Stockholm Accords. My analysis takes the Unites States perspective; these points may not
be valid elsewhere, but given the contribution the U.S. makes to the field, failure here will
impact the global community.
The Issue of Comprehension
The Stockholm Accords was written by 59 people from 20 countries and 6 continents
intended for a global audience. There were obvious challenges in selecting the right words given
the various languages and varieties of English the writers spoke. The result of these challenges
is language that consists of convoluted strings of perfect jargonized words that risk losing the
reader. It‟s pompous and difficult to comprehend.
For example, the description of sustainability reads:
The communicative organization assumes leadership by interpreting sustainability as a
transformational opportunity to improve its competitive positioning by pursuing and constantly
reporting on the achievement of its sustainability policies across the economic, social, and
environmental “triple bottom line.
The language puts unwelcomed responsibility on the reader. My sentiments are shared
by Paul Seaman, in his critique of the accords on his blog, 21st-century PR Issues. He states,
“Maybe a huge amount of meaning has been lost in translation. In English (hardly a minority
language for our game) this stuff sounds horrible and is reminiscent of long-settled debates.” He
continues, “The Accords‟ authors are well aware that their text is gibberish to c-level
management, the public and even to most PRs. Hence, Toni Muzi Falconi has provided an
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accompanying glossary and personal explanation of what the real intent is of each of the
Accords.”
The classic book, “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser dedicates a chapter to
simplicity. It states, “The reader is someone with the attention span of about 30 seconds – a
person assailed by many forces competing for attention.” When a reader is faced with difficult
reading, Zinsser continues, “readers are at first tenacious. They blame themselves – they
obviously missed something…But they won‟t do that for long. The writer is making them work
too hard, and they will look for one who is better at the craft.”
So who will stick around to read the document? My guess: academia (students and
professors), advocacy and non-profit groups (like the Public Relations Society of America), and
thought leaders (top agencies, consultants, and publications). The Stockholm Accords risks
turning off the millions of the practitioners not reflected in these categories and being dismissed
as an elitist movement.
To increase the SA‟s accessibility, I suggest creating local country-specific accords. A
country accord maintains the integrity of the principle accords but modifies the writing style for
a national (vs. international) audience.
The Issue of Feasibility
The concepts used to define public relations in the Stockholm Accords are: stakeholder
governance, communicative organization, network society, value network, and sustainability as a
transformative opportunity. These concepts are still gaining acceptance in the business world
and many are controversial if not completely unknown. As an example let‟s review the position
the Stockholm Accords takes on stakeholder governance versus the perspective of Paul Seaman,
a PR leader in the UK. Stockholm Accords on stakeholder governance:
“It implies that a corporation’s board of directors, or the elected leadership of a social or public
sector organization, in the case of conflicts between contrasting stakeholder group expectancies
decided which of them needs to be taken more into account, on the basis of a sound listening of
those expectancies. This implies that it is up to the board to situationally decide which
stakeholder group is more equal.
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“The shareholder model instead – even when it recognizes that other interests beyond those of
the shareholders need to be taken into account- tends to privilege, in the case of conflicting
expectations, the latter.”
Paul Seaman‟s response to stakeholder governance:
“The idea that all stakeholders are equal is erroneous. To pretend that organisations think they
are is to be open immediately to charges of double-speak.
Shareholders set the objectives of firms, control them through shareholder democracy, provide
the funds to run businesses and reap the rewards from their long-term success while carrying the
risks from their failure. Firms and institutions have self-interest at their core and there should be
no shame in saying so. Of course, other stakeholder interests need to be taken account of to
fulfill shareholder expectations because firms fulfill their objectives by providing goods or
services which add value to society.”
This is one of many scathing responses to the concepts defined in the Stockholm
Accords. I‟m sure there are forward-thinking organizations who accept these concepts, but the
odds are, most PR practitioners are working for organizations that either don‟t practice or aren‟t
familiar with these concepts. The SA sets an unrealistic expectation. The practitioner must first
educate his audience on revolutionary business principles and get them to accept these principles
before he can accomplish the mission of the Stockholm Accords. The concepts could
monopolize the discussion, turning it into a debate on network societies instead of promoting the
public relations profession.
In addition to an impractical conceptual framework, the internal communications
function of Public Relations, as written, is not viable. The SA definition reads:
Internal communication enhances recruitment, retention, development of common
interests and commitment to organizational goals by an increasingly diverse, extended and
segmented set of “internal” publics.
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It defines “internal” publics as:
The communicative organization extends well beyond today’s traditional definition of
full-time employees. Internal stakeholders now include full-timers, part-timers, seasonal
employees, contractors, consultants, suppliers, agents, distributors, volunteers.
In theory, it makes sense that suppliers, agents, and distributors are internal publics since
they are essential to mission fulfillment and interact with end customers. However, I oppose
including suppliers, agents, or distributors as internal publics, because they cannot have
“commitment to organization goals” as dictated by the internal communications definition.
Internal communication must either remove these groups from internal publics or change the
wording in the definition.
“Commitment to organizational goals” between parties requires trust, mutual benefit in
achieving those goals, and free information sharing. A supplier, agent, or distributor should
align to or compliment an organizations goal, but none will faithfully commit to it. These
publics have a business to run in a competitive environment. The relationship with these publics
can be honest, but their best-interest may eventually not be mutually beneficial. The supplier,
agent and distributor need flexibility in reaching their own goals, without the hindering
commitment to yours.
For the organization to earn “commitment to organizational goals” from suppliers, agents
and distributers, it must create an environment of trust and freely shared information. To
accomplish this, the organization faces opposition from traditional internal publics, namely full-
time employees.
I worked for a company that decided to grant distributors and agents free access to the
company‟s internal customer relationship management tools and other proprietary resources.
The company wanted to build trust and commitment with these publics. Company executives
met fierce resistance from the sales team and channel managers. From their perspective,
allowing these publics direct access to proprietary information undermined their account control,
value contribution and job security. Internal publics feel threatened when “outsiders” are given,
once privileged access or information. It can be done, but again this a growing concept and not
the responsibility of the PR practitioner to advocate.
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Suppliers, agents or distributors are a special population because of their contribution to
the organization, perhaps they should form a separate hybrid public, but they are not an internal
public.
Issue of Diction
Two of the most important roles of Public Relations are to persuade and predict. Yet,
both words, and related words, are absent from the Stockholm Accords.
“(Public relations is) information given to the public, persuasion directed at the public to modify
attitudes and actions, and efforts to integrate attitudes and actions of an institution with its
publics and of publics with those of that institution”– (Edward L. Bernays)
“Public relations is the planned process to influence public opinion, through sound character
and proper performance, based on mutually satisfactory two-way communication.”(“The
Practice of Public Relations”, 11th Edition, Fraser P. Seitel, 2007)
“A regular goal of public relations communicators is to persuade people to take certain actions.
Such persuasion needn’t be overly aggressive, it can be subtle.” (“The Practice of Public
Relations”, 11th Edition, Fraser P. Seitel, 2007)
“PRs communicate as advocates. PRs seek to influence behavior…. They influence debate and
opinion and try to ensure positive outcomes on behalf of their employers. PRs explain and
spread understanding and attempt to win consent for the views and activities of whomever they
represent.” (21st Century PR Issues Blog, Paul Seaman, May 2010)
“The primary value of a senior communication executive is less about transmitting information
– the typically definition of “communications – than about predicting how the constituencies
who matter to senior management are likely to behave…. professional communicators are
valued not only because of their communication skills, but rather because of their ability to
predict how groups who matter to management are likely to behave and further predict how to
get those groups to behave in a more beneficial way.” – (John Doorley and Helio Fred Garcia,
“Reputation Management”, 2007)
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“The public relations practitioner acts as a counselor to management and as a mediator, helping
to translate private aims into reasonable, publicly acceptable policy and action….(this)
encompasses the following: anticipating, analyzing and interpreting public opinion, attitudes
and issues that might impact, for good or ill, the operations and plans of the organization.”
(Official statement on public relations, Public Relations Society of America)
PR practitioners persuade publics to think or behave a certain way and predict that certain
actions will further this persuasion. The SA frequently uses the word “interpret”, but interpret
implies explicit evidence is present that must be explained. PR pros don‟t always have the
privilege or luxury of interpreting behavior. When quick decisions need to be made with limited
access to publics, best judgment is required. We depend on past listening activities and our deep
understanding of the public to predict the best course of action and the response it will evoke.
The Stockholm Accords attempt to ignore the profession as an art of persuasion is disingenuous,
or perhaps the writers are just in denial.
The Issue of Credibility
The Stockholm Accords attempts to shift business consciousness and the public relations
profession through conjectural concepts. This mighty feat is being led by the Global Alliance, a
professional organization, whose credibility is questionable.
“(N)etwork based „association style‟ sites such a LinkedIn… and other social network
pages, reveals considerable questioning among individual practitioners as to the value and
benefit of belonging to a nation or international public relations association. Add to this the
many free web based education resources, blog-based „how-to‟ guides, exchange and social
networks where virtual cards can be exchanged and working relationship built and many of the
traditional elements of a professional network can seem threatened or irrelevant.” (“The Future
Practicioner, Catherine Arrow, 2009)
The intense scrutiny of professional organizations limits the Global Alliances‟ ability to
effectively lead this effort. The SA is certainly an attempt to move beyond “the traditional
elements of a professional network” but given the overall perception of professional
organizations, this may not matter. Especially since the “global professional community is
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formed by some three million professionals…only 10% of these…belong to a professional
association.” (What is PR, Catherine Arrow)
To confirm its credibility in the minds of readers, the Global Alliance should locally co-
brand the Stockholm Accords with organizations in local markets. This could include national or
local professional organizations, educational institutions, and major PR firms. An official
partner or endorsement from a credible organization within a local market will extend the reach,
and legitimacy of the Stockholm Accords.
The Issue of Accountability
One element missing from the accord entirely is accountability. The objective again is
“enhance and affirm the central role” of the field. How can this be done convincingly without
discussing how the value of this central role is measured? It is a reasonable expectation that we
demonstrate some accountability for the value we affirm to provide. The answer may depend
greatly on the specific responsibilities of the professional, but the document at a minimum is
responsible for addressing the issue.
The Issue of Evaluation
In the evaluation section of the Stockholm Accords it states “the end result of this effort
is to enhance and reinforce the value proposition of our profession to society and organizations.”
But, what was the SA‟s value proposition?
According to businessdictonary.com a value proposition is defined as “the single most
important question. If you can't explain--in three jargon-free sentences or less--why customers
need your product, you do not have a value proposition. Without a need, there is no incentive for
customers to pay. And without sales, you have no business. Period.”
The Stockholm Accords is six pages long with no attempt to boil it down to a few simple
jargon-free sentences. In addition, the SA is written as a framework with no guidelines for
execution. It simply says to use “maximum flexibility for specific applications.” The reader has
too much interpretative power. Even if the results show reputation improvement across all
audiences, the Global Alliance will have difficulty explaining what that means. Excessive
flexibility will make the results hard to measure, which will force the Global Alliance to use a
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subjective approach in its analysis. This evaluation process will destroy the integrity of the
Stockholm Accords. The answer: clearly provide a three sentence value proposition up-front and
change “maximum flexibility” to “reasonable flexibility.”
Conclusion
There is benefit in defining public relations and increasing the professions reputation
across publics. However the SA‟s elaborate explanations of complex concepts overcomplicates
the profession and is counter-intuitive. The function of Public Relations is simple: we relate with
the public. How it‟s achieved constantly changes to mirror the social and cultural dynamics of
business, communities, and publics. But although it changes, it is not complex. We are the
chameleons of business, able to adapt in any situation where a public understanding and
relationship is required. This concept of flexibility is lost within the Stockholm Accords.
In addition, the concepts presented in the accords focus more on what will be versus what
is. If the SA is supposed to affirm the professions value it needs to be relevant in today’s
business environment. Instead, the accords is infested with next-generation, debatable concepts,
which puts too much responsibility on the PR professional and monopolizes the discussion.
Typically you capture a massive global audience by using simple language. The Stockholm
Accords does just the opposite which threatens its acceptance.
The Stockholm Accords needs user-friendly language and real-world application. It can
gain these by paying attention to these specific areas: comprehension, feasibility, diction,
credibility, accountability and evaluation. If it does not, the Stockholm Accords will serve only a
comprehensive piece of thought leadership; referenced on blogs and in academia, but with little
to no actionable impact on the public relations field.
I applaud the intentions and ambitions of the Stockholm Accords, but it needs a few
major revisions before it can make any major impact.
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