 Encouraging Teamwork Among Competing Public Relations Firms
Each project in Tampa Bay Water’s Master Water Plan
has an integrated public information and involvement component.
These individual efforts are guided by an "umbrella"
plan – an overarching communications plan that governs
graphic style, key messages and coordinates efforts among
the projects to eliminate redundancy. During the feasibility
stage, there were up to nine project-specific public involvement
programs in process, each with its own public information
and involvement consultant.
In order to effectively coordinate the overall program, Tampa
Bay Water needed each consultant to act as a member of the
umbrella team. The difficulty with this task is that each
project team felt they were in competition with one another.
Ultimately, some projects would be selected for implementation
while others were rejected. And, outside Tampa Bay Water,
the public relations consultants did compete day-to-day for
the same business. Project teams were less than enthusiastic
about sharing information and resources.
However, in just a few short months, the individual public
relations consultants were functioning as a team, coordinating
activities and sharing responsibility for the overall success
of the Master Water Plan. From the authors’ experience,
this was accomplished through three elements:
1. Each firm must understand the common goal and be dedicated
to reaching it – In the case of Tampa Bay Water, the
overall goal was to develop diverse new groundwater supplies
to meet the region’s needs. The agency was also committed
to proactive public participation that was strategically planned
and carefully coordinated. Buy-in from each public relations
consultant to an agency’s goals is essential to effective
teamwork.
Since the start of the Master Water Plan, Tampa Bay Water
has communicated to its consultants that implementation of
this ambitious program will require a team effort. Indeed,
each team is asked to go above and beyond the responsibilities
of its individual project to meet the agency’s objectives.
Each team understands that their project is not an island
unto itself; each project is a piece of an overall water supply
puzzle. Inter-team cooperation is not a request – it
is a requirement – and anything less is unacceptable.
2. Each firm must know how it contributes to the whole –
Demonstrating how each firm can contribute to the agency’s
goals and objectives helps build a sense of pride and ownership
among the public relations consultant’s staff. This
sense of contribution must be reinforced through communications,
especially in team meetings. Once each firm knows how it contributes
to the whole, an atmosphere of cooperation is created in which
brainstorming, creative thinking and resource sharing are
encouraged.
3. Each firm must be assigned non-competing roles that play to
each firm’s expertise – Tampa Bay Water’s
umbrella plan includes a number of tasks that our outsourced
to members of the umbrella team. Those tasks are split among
the firms based on each firm’s specific expertise. For
instance, one firm has an excellent creative team, so they
are assigned development and production of all television,
radio and print public information materials. Another firm’s
staff is adept at media relations and media writing, so they
are assigned development and placement of guest editorials.
Strategic planning is shared by all, and community contacts
are assigned irrespective of project.
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