FPRA - Florida Public Relations Association Blog

It seems more than a little humorous for me to write about any law of physics since I never took a course in it, but Newton’s 3rd Law of Physics is an important lesson for public relations practitioners. The law states simply: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Made a law of public relations, it would read: “For every action an organization takes, there will be an equal and opposite reaction.”

Some constituent, some public, some competitor, some one will react to what you do … and the responsibility of the public relations professional is to counsel and guide the organization to take those reactions into account before action is taken so the reactions to the eventual course of action will evoke the organization’s desired response.

Tom Henderson, a high school science teacher in Glenview, Illinois, explained Newton’s 3rd Law this way:

“The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The size of the forces on the first object equals the size of the force on the second object. The direction of the force on the first object is opposite to the direction of the force on the second object. Forces always come in pairs - equal and opposite action-reaction force pairs.”

I think Tom would have explained my law of equal and opposite reactions in public relations something like this:

“The statement means that in every social interaction, there is a pair of forces at work so that for every step taken by an organization, with those who are affected by the action (stakeholders) a reaction of equal force will result … be it gleeful support and endorsement of the action or angry and violent opposition.”

Anyone who practices public relations has heard the old saying: “we go into public relations because we don’t do math or science.”

But the truth is, this is a science … a very important social science. Our role as counselors – to our employers and clients – is to help them strike a balance between the equally powerful forces of their own organizations and those to whom their actions are important.

In reality, this law is more an art: The Art of Consequential Thinking.

In fact, it is a painfully simple rule that is left out of most – if not all – textbooks but that all of us can and must follow. We must ask ourselves “what will the reaction be from those affected by this action we are considering?”

All of us remember those complicated questions in standardized tests … you know, “if a train leaves New York and travels west at 128 mph and one leaves Los Angeles …”

In the world of public relations, think of it like this: “if a company announces a major new resort and promotes it heavily worldwide but a hurricane delays the opening, who will be affected, how will they react and what must the company do to assess, limit and mitigate the impact of the delayed opening on its various constituents?”

Most of our public relations education teaches us how to promote the planned resort by pitching business and travel media, update them with photos and videos during construction, create buzz with consumers and push for them to make early reservations.

There is little that prepares us, however, for the downturn. Sure, we study crisis communications and we all know that you have to be up front with the media and community about bad news. But when we have to make tough decisions – even when it is because of something beyond our control – is our mindset geared toward the reactions our actions will bring about?

You can’t blame the company for the hurricane, but as jobs are lost, vacations delayed, and vendors lose money … some will ask “Couldn’t you have done something?” If you don’t anticipate those questions as part of the decision-making process, you’re job isn’t done.

A recent example comes to mind. Orlando-based Hughes Supply has been a darling of the business community and media as one of the city’s only two home-grown Fortune 500 companies. When Atlanta’s Home Depot announced its acquisition of Home Depot, the Orlando Sentinel reacted quickly to talk about what a loss it would be to the community. One has to wonder if that issue was ever considered as part of the public relations planning surrounding what otherwise appeared to be a good business decision for both companies.

There is a need for much deeper thinking when bad news is on the horizon.

Who will be affected? How will they be affected? How will they react?

What are they likely to do? What might we anticipate they will say about us? What can we do to make them see we understand?

When must we communicate with them? How will we reach them? Where are they going to get their information?

The old 5 Ws and H from journalism training can come in handy as we think about the consequences of the decisions our organizations are about to make.

So, how do you develop consequential thinking habits? Two tips:

1. Always step back from any situation and put yourself in the shoes of those affected … ask yourself to look at the situation from their perspective before you write your plan.

2. Learn to play connect the dots. Whenever I’m in a planning situation, I map it out on a notepad and by drawing an “org chart” of sorts of all who are involved and affected, #1 is much easier.

The important thing to remember is that the role of public relations is to gauge the impact of decisions before action is taken, not just to write the news release after the decision is made.

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Roger Pynn, APR is President of Curley & Pynn.