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Home > All site sections > HR blogs and comment > HR blogs > Specialists' blog

The potential of Stockholm Accords

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Ian Buckingham

17 Aug 2010 | 09:07

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Articles more than one month old can be viewed only by CIPD members or PM Subscribers.

I’ve long been a fan of integration and collaboration across internal and external communication in the interests of developing healthier, sustainable brands. So I’m pleased with what the PR industry has been up to in Stockholm recently, and the publication of the Stockholm Accords.

Notable PR professionals have recently gathered at the World Public Relations Forum where they have produced a “call to action” for public relations professionals.

The Accords are a rallying call for the global PR community to commit to work to some code of practice. The aim is to “administer its principles on a sustained basis and to affirm them throughout the profession, as well as to management and other relevant stakeholder groups”.

In short, those who gathered have created a model suggesting that if we coordinate all communication properly, we have a sound basis for management, the foundation for communicating internally. This gives us the basis for communicating externally, which then provides the base for governance and social responsibility. All sweet music to my ears.

They also suggest that, by doing all of these things correctly, we will achieve organisational sustainability. In short, public relations, through holistic stakeholder management, can ensure that organisations adapt and endure, largely through listening and responding.

Interestingly, the Accords give prominence to internal communication and communication from the inside out and outside in. Surprisingly perhaps, two of the seven Accords are about internal communication.

Now, I’ve been a longstanding critic of what I have referred to as a plague of short-termism within organisations.

I have also pointed to a lack of authenticity as a largely unrecognised catalyst behind the recent global recession, creating flawed notions of performance culture development and a boom and bust approach to management:

As a result, I’m likely to support anything that has a vision of sustainability at its core and the song of authenticity in its heart. I applaud initiatives that look to bring the communication and engagement disciplines closer together to reverse the negative perceptions associating PR with the 90s phenomenon of spin. I’ll certainly celebrate anything that raises the profile of the power of joined-up communication in the interests of developing organisations fit for the medium to long-term purpose.

But the words need to be accompanied by actions. Apparently around 1,000 international communications professionals contributed to the Accords. The fact that they have devoted so much time and effort at such trying times speaks volumes. There really aren’t any excuses left for failing to take an integrated approach to managing brands.