27. How To Be A Good PR Manager

How to be a good PR manager is written by Dr. C. V Narasimha Reddi, who is the editor at Public Relations Voice. He was also the Director in the Department of Information and Public Relations for the government of Andhra Pradesh. Dr. Reddi has held key executive and academic positions such as cultural affairs, academy of rural development, press secretary to four chief ministers, advisor, Osmania university academic consultant, Dr. B. R Ambedkar Open university academic facilitator. His first book on PR was “How to be a good pro” in 1974. He has written 16 books on media and public relations. Awards and accolades conferred on him are a testimony to his outstanding contribution to the field of public relations. He has divided the book into four parts. In the first part, he talks about Participative management. He says that management helps individuals working together in groups efficiently accomplish selected aims. According to him a manager must be willing to work hard, be perseverance, determined, be able to take risks, inspire enthusiasm, be tough, management and interpersonal skills and must have technical knowledge. He also talks about stakeholders include two facets: 

1. Industrial relations 

2. Public relations                                                                                                                         

In part two that is public relations practice, he defines: public relations is the management of a two-way communication process between an organization and its publics to promote the corporate’s mission, goals, services, products, reputation and earn public understanding. He says that PR in India is evolving and is worth Rs 10000 crore. The author talks about different ways of operation, job titles, and functions, misconceptions, expectations of managers in PR. The author gave us 10 takes that a manager must do:

1. They plan
2. They manage
3. They maintain relations
4. They organize
5. They write
6. They edit
7. They publish
8. They speak
9. They research
10. They train

He spoke about global PR, spin doctor, guidelines and the three stages of public relations in India such as:

1.The state of Propaganda

2. The era of publicity

3.The era of public relations

He also spoke about the ten commandments which are research, identification of problems, setting objectives, target audience, action plans, PR programme, media strategy, budgeting, communication, and evaluation. In part three which is eight attributes of a good PR manager, he talks about how essential good PR planning is for the success of PR practice. Good PR is highly dependent on skills, knowledge, and attitudes of individual PR practitioners and also talks about the barriers of good PR. The public relations communication has five facets which are talking and listening, reading and writing, body language or non-verbal communication. The four ‘As’ and ‘Ps’ are also very important the success of a PR manager is entirely dependent on this. A stand for analysis and P represents performance. The functions of a PR manager are four-fold. The Analyst, the Advisor, the Advocate, and the Antenna. He also gave us the four P’s which are as follows: personal characteristics, professional qualifications, professional skills, and psychological mind. He also gave us the four don’ts for a PR profession.

1. Don’t speak panacea for everything or every problem.
2. Do not indulge in a panegyric on your boss’s achievement.
3. Do not seek personal publicity for yourself.
4. Do not have a negative attitude.

He ended the third chapter with the ten golden guidelines for PR writing. He ends the book In the fourth part he talks about great PR professionals like Ivy Ledbetter Lee, John W. Will, Edward L. Bernays, Sanat Lahiri, Farrok S. Mulla, and Anil Basu.