DEEP TALKS WITH GLOBAL PUBLIC RELATIONS LEADERS SERIES
TONI MUZI FALCONI
Professor, senior counsel of change management and former chair of the Global Alliance
“The PR profession gives me life, air, reason”
Toni Muzi Falconi
By José Manuel Velasco
I met first time Toni Muzi Falconi when I was chair-elect of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management. When I asked Toni about his opinion on the situation of the alliance, I was shocked by his answer: “The Global Alliance is dead”. Nowadays the Global Alliance is more alive than ever because Toni’s pessimistic vision pushed me even more to change the path and the pace of the organization (I didn’t want to be the undertaker) and, fortunately, the majority of the GA board shared my plan, especially the current president, Justin Green, who is leading with success the largest PR community. So, Toni’s strong opinions through this interview have the capacity to mobilize our mind to build a better and more influential profession.
José Manuel Velasco (JMV): You have a very large background in the PR business. But why did you become a PR professional?
Toni Muzi Falconi (TMF): Frankly I did not become a PR professional, I was born as one. Both parents were diplomats: one (father) for the Italian government and the other (mother) as daughter of British envoy to the Emperors of China util the mid-thirties and then to Ethiopia. Both parents very much interpreted the idea that life was ‘always on’ in a continued effort to create, develop and improve relationships with their stakeholders, mainly via exchanges of culture and dialogue.
JMV: Could you share a short story or anecdote related to your vocation?
TMF: In my teens I was attracted, after forced infant residences in Italian consulates and embassies in Central America, Portugal, Austria, Northern Italy, United States, Bulgaria and Indonesia, as I grew up I earned my first master degree in public relations in the LUMSA University of Rome (when it was part of the Vatican and led by Father Morlion, then head of Opus Dei, long before it was subsequently transferred to Italy’s Confindustria). The theme of my master dissertation in 1962 was ‘labour relations for trade unions’.
JMV: What does the PR profession give to you?
TMF: Life, air, reason.
JMV: You have given a lot to the profession after some 60 years studying, working, managing and teaching Public Relations. Choose a key moment of your professional career.
TMF: In the late sixties, early seventies of the last century, I concluded that Communication was, yes, an everchanging super dynamic, highly important and sophisticated management tool to develop relationships with stakeholders (individuals, public institutions, social and private organisations and more recently algorithms) who all supported me in accelerating the achievement of my objectives.
JMV: Define the purpose of the PR profession.
TMF: The profession serves organizations in developing relationships with internal, external and boundary stakeholder groups when in pursuit of legitimate and socially responsible objectives. When not the profession is either futile or, even worse, creates harm to society.
JMV: Do you think the profession is really globalized?
TMF: Yes, in as much as it is based on a generic principles and specific applications ‘conceptual framework’. The degree of globalization depends on the adoption of the framework that the first of the generic principles is the specific application and the first of the specific applications is the generic principle.
JMV: How is digitalization impacting on the PR job?
TMF: Digitalization began impacting PR since Gutenberg in the 15th century, with a strong acceleration in the 20 and 21 centuries. What else is new?
JMV: What do you think is our main challenge?
TMF: Our main challenge is to apply the communication-with tool to the stakeholder interpretation of relationship governance and to master the art of listening.
JMV: Is the PR function threatened by marketing?
TMF: Not particularly. From my perspective, Marketing, in fact is a part of public relations.
JMV: Which do you think is our main challenge on the ethics side.
TMF: Responsibility to ourselves, our clients, our stakeholders, our colleagues, the public and society.
JMV: Do you think “truth” is threatened in the digital world?
TMF: Truth, whatever it may be, has always been threatened.
JMV: What do we have to do to elevate the profession? That means, for example, to be recognized as a C-Suite function.
TMF: PR is a management profession and therefore belongs to functions normally attributed to the functions of the C-suite (whatever this is). This does not need elevation, it needs coherent action.
JMV: What attitudes need a PR manager?
TMF: Being professionally objective, rational, creative, understanding, relating and communicating with others
JMV: And skills?
TMF: Listening, understanding, managing, planning, expressing, evaluating, measuring and adapting.
JMV: Draw the ideal organization for a PR department.
TMF: Totally subject to the specific organization’s culture.
JMV: Which managerial skills should a PR manager improve?
TMF: Listening, interpreting, absorbing, organizing, dialogue, writing and organizing.
JMV: What would you say to a trainee on his/her first day of work?
TMF: Hi and welcome we need you.
JMV: And the same to a senior manager over 50 years old.
TMF: Hi and welcome, we need your skills and ideas.
JMV: Please, share with us a quote which impacted you the most.
TMF: Relationships are the principal objective of any form of communicating-with.
JMV: Recommend a book to the Global Alliance community.
TMF: Glow worms- biased memoirs of a global public relator (freely downloadable here: http://www.biasedmemoirs.com).
JMV: The Global Alliance is now a strong, diverse and, above all, a real alliance. What do you think the organization should evolve in the next years?
TMF: Keep intelligent track and understand the implications of Meta, while lending guidance and discussing with its members and society the change of pace of the profession as it deals with the increasingly abounding counterfeits coming from inside, outside and the flanks.