Most management consultants will tell you as the manager and strategist you should not get bogged down in those details, but that is the level where precision and quality manifest themselves. A brilliant and creative plan can easily be short-circuited by inept or sloppy execution.

Misspellings, poor grammar, inconsistent style and punctuation, uninspired art and photography, and careless editorial work on headlines, cutlines and other display elements destroy your credibility as a communicator. Fundamental to a sound and effective PR strategy is a commitment to the highest standard of quality and consistency in all of your communications.

I know we have all had circumstances where the message we were trying to convey was all but obliterated by the typo or grammar error that became the center of attention.

Precision in language and grammar continues to decline, and the future looks bleak because so many young people heading into the PR profession are ill-equipped to perform the profession’s most fundamental and essential task: writing. As young people become a greater presence in the communications world, particularly at perpetually cost-cutting newspapers, the problems are exacerbated.

Having watched innumerable TV ads and read a lot of crumby print ads, online articles, and broadcast and print news stories that have butchered the language I find myself ever more sensitive to these mistakes. Here are two that jumped up in just 24 hours as I was pondering this missive.

Justin Klugh, a writer for philly.com, let us know that pitcher Chad Durbin, “an alumni of the 2008 (Philadelphia Phillies) World Series team,” had been released.

The other night while watching ESPN I saw on the ticker at the bottom of the screen that Ohio State University President Gordon Gee had made some regrettable remarks at a meeting of Ohio State’s “Athletics Counsel.” Gee may have shared his views on academics and sports at other institutions with his university attorney, but I am certain his comments were taped at an Athletics Council meeting.

There are so many more examples. So here are some ideas and tools that may help us manage the communication details:

• Create an institutional style guide, refer to it often and ingrain the rules in your shop.
• Use a dictionary, online or in print. If you have any doubt about the spelling or use of a word, look it up. I mean it. Look it up.
• Adopt the venerable inverted pyramid journalistic format when you begin thinking about telling a story or sending a message. First things first. Identify the key ideas and construct your story or message around them. Concise, clear words and sentences, active voice, those are old school fundamentals.
• Build a culture of precision and attention to detail. You don’t need to be a micromanager to instill a commitment to meticulousness in communication.
• Learn from your mistakes. Try as hard as we can, we’re all going to screw up some time. Your response to errors is another measure of your attention to detail.

It’s important to remind ourselves the care we take in crafting our communications and delivering information to people reflects the respect we have for them, our commitment to the highest standard of professionalism and our belief in the value and importance of credibility and trust.

My remarks on career transition focused on the extraordinary women I have known throughout my professional career (and one I have known in my personal life).

I was inspired by a quote that appeared on CNN from the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: “If you need something said, ask a man,” Thatcher observed. “If you need something done, ask a woman.”

I have been truly blessed to be married to a woman who has made the Thatcher quote ring wholly true to me. She has saved my life so many times in so many ways, and I have counted on her time and time again to get “something done” like no one else in my lifetime. She also is a gifted professional who heads an international non-profit organization, and she epitomizes all of the qualities of leadership I will outline below.

I have been hugely fortunate to have as partners at each of the institutions at which I have worked extraordinary and dynamic women who have been public relations superstars.

The Thatcher quote got me thinking: What do these outstanding and accomplished women have in common?

They do, indeed, get things done. They are wonderfully energetic and unfailingly dependable. Because of their reliability and their ability to manage and handle all kinds of issues, problems and projects they have made themselves indispensable at the top of the organizations we have led.

They are creative. They have ideas that stem from their inquisitiveness and their engagement in the world. And they are smart, really smart. They do not wait for someone to tell them what to do. They combine great thinking with effective action. Their ideas are viable and feasible because their creativity extends into a plan to put their initiatives in action. Best of all, these women have what a long-time mentor of mine called “flair.” Not only do they get the project or program done, they add qualities and elements that make it something special. They put the cherry atop the sundae.

These women are self-confident, assertive, unafraid and able to handle the pressure. They express ideas and make decisions. They believe in themselves and they have the courage to blaze a new path. They are leaders, but they are quintessential leaders because they bring an emotional IQ that enables them to collaborate and communicate with people, and bring out the best in them. They have gone on and will go on to lead their own organizations.

I noted in my brief remarks that IBM had recently issued its 2012 Global Student Study, in which it surveyed college and university students and compared their views to chief executive officers. Pertinent to the panel discussion was a question in which IBM asked the executives the four personal characteristics they feel are critical to success. The four the CEOs valued most highly were communication ability, a collaborative nature, flexibility and creativity.

Check.

I am certain there were only a small number of women in that CEO survey, and that’s a shame. The qualities of leadership have nothing to do with gender, but the experiences of my life have led me to believe otherwise.

I’ve been fortunate enough to survive a number of leadership changes during my career, and I know it can be an unsettling time for public relations executives at colleges and universities.

The best presidents I have worked for have combined self-confidence with a marked sense of humility. They were really smart and savvy, but they were also open to other viewpoints and perspectives. They respected and appreciated the professionals who worked for them. They did not pretend to know everything. The worst exhibited none of that.

I distinctly remember leaving a weekly meeting of the president’s administrative support staff a couple of months into the tenure of a newly appointed president. It had been another slog through some clerical and logistical details, and the inevitable monologue from the president.

“That guy,” one of my close friends and colleagues said as we left the president’s office, “always needs to be the smartest guy in the room.”

Because of his lack of self-confidence that president felt compelled to demonstrate he had the answers to all of the questions. There are a good number of these kinds of leaders in higher education because many of them are appointed to presidential positions without adequate preparation for the challenges and responsibilities they will face.

There is no training ground for higher education chief executive officers, though experience as a provost is a major asset on the resume. It’s on-the-job training for a lot of college and university presidents. The best understand that. The worst do not.

Adding to the problem is the fact you really cannot count on boards of trustees or regents to select the best candidate for the presidency. Most board members do not have the depth of involvement or experience to understand what it takes to lead in the arcane world of academic management. For those who live in the corporate world where there is a level of “command and control,” the negotiation and compromise inherent in running an academic enterprise are sometimes difficult to comprehend and evaluate.

It’s like that box of chocolates line from the film, “Forrest Gump.” You never know what you’re going to get. Some of us have been fortunate enough to be so engaged with our boards to have some input in the selection process. Often, however, public relations folks get called in when it is time to make an announcement.

In watching and reading about presidential successions over the years I have discovered one consistent element that further adds to the trepidation for PR pros. It is the rare president who during the introductory press conference does not vow that during his or her tenure the college or university will do a much, much better job of “getting the word out” and finally revealing to the world what a phenomenal institution he or she will lead.

There are so many factors to consider when a change is made at the top of a college or university, and it is important for PR professionals to be prepared for all of the exigencies. It should be a lively conversation on April 17.

“It’s funny how people just won’t accept change,” Harrison sang, “as if nature itself they’d prefer rearranged.”

In his international bestseller, “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,” Sogyal Rinpoche wrote, “”I ask myself often: ‘Why is it that everything changes?’ and only one answer comes back to me. That is how life is.”

Buddhist thought focuses on impermanence, the recognition that you and everything around you is constantly changing. It is true, but as Harrison opined, difficult for most of us to accept.

“We so desperately want everything to continue as it is that we have to believe that things will always stay the same,” Sogyal Rinpoche wrote. “But this is only make-believe.”

Some of us hold tightly to our routines. They seem to provide a certain kind of security. Others eschew new ideas, secure in the knowledge that what they have learned over the years provides a world view that is steadfast and reliable. Many of us treat our lives like a TV program, same time, same channel every day, every week, every year.

Change can be scary. That’s why we cling to the tried and true. Change can be uncomfortable, unsettling and uncharted. We know what we’ve got right here, right now, but who knows what will happen if we blaze a new path.

It’s tough enough to embrace change on a personal level. It’s tougher still when you open yourself to organizational change. So many unknowns. So many risks. So many people and perspectives involved. So tough to step out of that comfort zone.

The precept I have always seized on to move myself, and one I have repeated to my son far too many times, is this: In a world of constant change you can let the world act on you or you can act on the world by taking charge of your own life and having the self-confidence that change opens new doors of opportunity.

As public relations practitioners we have no choice. Our profession requires us to embrace change. It is a foundation of our practice.

My long-time friends and colleagues in PR will assuredly agree that change management is an essential part of their work. And they will also agree it is complex, it is hard and it requires a complete commitment.

I have not yet discovered a handbook of change management that offers success for all organizations, in all circumstances and situations. I know I am not going to find one because, above all, change involves people, their many perspectives, personalities, interests and ideas.

Just for grins, though, here are some of the basics on which to build a foundation for organizational change.

• Vision. As a leader, can you inspire people to aspire to the vision you have for your organization? Can you articulate its value, not just to the organization, but to the individuals who are the organization?

• Strategic planning. Can you produce a feasible blueprint for success in achieving your vision? Can you adroitly combine the values, assets and strengths of your organization with a new direction and new ideas?

• Compassion. Are you sensitive to the needs and interests of the women and men in your organization? Are you willing to listen to them? Are you committed to helping them navigate the uncharted waters of a changing organization?

• Communication. PR pros should have this one nailed, but somehow inadequate communication is a common failing in change management. Because of the uncertainty and instability inherent in organizational change it is critical that communication is timely, consistent, frequent, informative, open and honest. Communication is a two-way deal. Again, are you a good listener?

You can do all of these basics and still screw it up. I know I have. When you don’t realize the reward from the risk you’ve taken, the change you’ve pursued, there is only one thing to do, of course—change.

At its root, marketing is based on a transaction. I provide and promote a product or service. You buy it. While marketing uses some public relations concepts to stimulate the transactional behavior it seeks, its bottom line is sales of the product or service to a consumer. Marketing defines the value of that product or service and uses all kinds of tactics, including public relations, to convince consumers to make the deal.

At the core of public relations practice is the desire to elicit mutually beneficial behavior from an organization and its various constituencies. Unlike marketing, its responsibility and reach extend far beyond consumers.

What is most important to note is public relations’ pursuit of consensus, finding common ground between the interests and needs of an organization and its stakeholders and constituencies. By its nature, this is a two-way street, and it is important for PR professionals to always keep this in mind.

A significant part of many PR pros’ work is focused on one-way information transfer, an important first step on the path to behavior. After all, you can’t get anyone to do anything without building awareness and stimulating interest in an organization, product or service. But a critical step on the road to consensus and mutual benefit is engagement, and this should inform your thinking every day you show up in the office.

The PR pro says to those people, those stakeholders, those publics, those audiences out there, “We want to get to know you better. We want you to know us better. We want to engage you in the life of our organization.”

Engagement builds understanding. Connecting with consistency and honesty builds credibility. Credibility creates trust. Trust leads to supportive behavior.

There are no winners and losers in the nirvana of best public relations practice. Everyone wins. Here’s hoping some folks in Washington, D.C. can subscribe to this fundamental public relations philosophy.

If Jackson, principal of his own PR firm and former president of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), was in the lineup at a conference sponsored by PRSA or the Council for Advancement and Support of Education I’d be there. He was a dynamic, energetic speaker who always delivered…always. He told me things I did not know, motivated me to improve as a practitioner and forced me to question some of the strategies and tactics I was using.

I remember vividly one session in which he opened his remarks with the statement, “Public relations is more difficult than brain surgery.” I watched a skeptical audience lean forward. We listened intently as Jackson made the case for his premise.

“When a brain surgeon opens up a patient’s skull,” Jackson said, “all of the parts are in the same place, every time. That’s not the case with public relations. Every crisis, issue or problem is different and complex. There is no tried-and-true pattern to follow.”

When the speech was over I went up to congratulate him and ask a couple of questions. Unlike so many speakers, who want to do the obligatory handshake and get out of the room, Jackson focused in on me and made it clear he was interested in what I was saying. Even more impressive, he never failed to promptly send additional information when he returned to his office.

The opportunities I had to spend one-on-one time with Jackson meant even more to me. When old friend Mary Ann Aug and I collaborated on bringing Jackson to Pittsburgh to address her staff at the University of Pittsburgh and mine at Carnegie Mellon University, I had a chance to take him to dinner.

Knowing Jackson’s penchant for places that are distinctive and reflect their communities my choice was Chiodo’s, a classic steel mill town bar and restaurant known for its delicious “mystery sandwich.” The owner, Joe Chiodo, was always in the barroom, whose walls were covered with Pittsburgh sports memorabilia.

I looked across our table and saw that Jackson was very tired from a very long day, so I felt the need to move the meal along and get him out of there. But then the conversation started. We talked about public relations, about life, and he asked questions about my situation and the city of Pittsburgh, and the look in his eyes showed me his interest was genuine. I remember leaving Chiodo’s that night feeling like I had learned yet another lesson from the great Patrick Jackson.

I learned to never underestimate the power of listening. Few people do it, so it is a remarkable and surprising thing when you find someone who listens intently and demonstrates the value he or she places in the person who is speaking. When you listen you are learning and you are expressing your humanity, a concern for and interest in others. Listening–valuing another person and his or her ideas and views–is a window on who you are.

The words spoken by the late, great Pat Jackson, who died in 2001, have shaped my career, but his humanity, his goodness, his concern for others and his heartfelt commitment to listening have been models for my life.

Remember, as the late, great Patrick Jackson, PR counselor and former president of the Public Relations Society of America, frequently noted, public relations really focuses on three basic behavioral goals:
1.) Get people to do something.
2.) Get people not to do so something.
3.) Get people to allow you or your organization to do something.

Communications as a critical component of effective public relations, but it alone does not define the practice. To get to the “bottom line” of behavior, communications must be connected to strategies, plans and programs aimed at fostering interpersonal contact. As renowned researcher James Grunig of the University of Maryland has shown time and time again communications alone does not stimulate behavior.

Simply put, people influence people to take action. Take a moment and think about that first car you bought. Before you plunked down the cash or wrote the check you likely sought out the opinion of someone you respect, someone with the knowledge and experience to confirm or validate your decision. You looked for your own opinion leader in the car-buying world. Opinion leaders are highly sought after targets by public relations and marketing pros because of their ability to affect the decisions of others. They are in a position to influence other people’s behavior through interpersonal contact because they:

• Are respected.
• Have a view that carries weight in a community.
• Are catalysts for the formation of public opinion.
• Are highly interested in an issue or issues.
• Are better informed than the average person.
• Are believed to have more knowledge of a subject or issue.
• Are avid consumers of mass media.
• Are interpreters of media content.
• Actively search out information on a subject.
• Like to let their opinions be known.
• Actively share information.

Does diffusion process translate a half-century later? It surely does. And has there ever been a clearer manifestation of the value and importance of opinion leaders than the activity we see every day on social media outlets? This relatively new communications channel has opened up new conversations and accelerated contacts among people with similar interests. Some of them want to express a point of view, others want validation. Some want to make their case, others want to shoot it down. Somewhere in the growing clutter and inanity of social media are opinion leaders who have the attributes listed above. Will PR pros be able to unleash their power by engaging in social media in a meaningful way? If they do, they’ll be going a long way toward turning everybody’s favorite communications buzzwords into an important and enduring public relations and marketing tool.

Newell’s life work (he died in 1992) was focused on cognitive architecture. As he described it, “a fixed set of mechanisms that enable the acquisition and use of content in a memory to guide behavior in pursuit of goals. This is the essence of the computational theory of the mind.” Newell and Simon were among the first to offer up the idea that computers could be programmed to think.

Newell’s research group at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the 1980s focused on Soar, a cognitive architecture constructed in a software system that was capable of solving problems and learning much like human beings do.

As one might guess, Soar drew significant national news media attention, and it was the work of Carol Pearson, one of our terrific corps of public relations professionals at CMU at that time, to pursue and manage coverage of the project. A cover story in Science magazine and another major piece in Insight that appeared in close proximity in 1988 put the national scientific spotlight on Soar. Newell was thrilled, but some of his younger, less experienced colleagues were not. They complained about the time they had to put in to work with the writers. The stories stimulated additional interest from other reporters, scientists and interested people, and that was a problem, too. Worst of all, the stories were not totally accurate. Despite their best efforts, the writers had made some mistakes. Some scientists questioned the whole publicity deal.

The scientists were expressing legitimate and understandable concerns, and it is the role of campus public relations pros to address them and mitigate them if at all possible. Carol, who has gone on to have a distinguished public relations career, went to work, but she faced some intransigent critics.

Enter Allen Newell. Before offering a prescription on how to handle media inquiries and other information requests by working with public relations, here’s what Newell had to say to his colleagues in an e-mail:

“The responsibility to communicate to the lay and lay-scientific public is part of the general ethos of science. It is a good thing.

“Good things can happen when one communicates into the open world that the media reaches—good for Soar, good for the Computer Science Department, good for CMU, good even for you and yours, and me and mine. This is one reason why universities keep public relations departments.

“It is usual for such stories to be distorted, sometimes in minor ways, sometimes in critical ways. It occurs for all kinds of reasons that range from a minimal investment by the journalist, to the journalist’s lack of understanding, to honest miscommunication, to our failing to make ourselves understood, to our dealing with the press in a cavalier fashion, and on and on.

“It is likely this message is much ado about nothing, and that the dust will settle very rapidly. But just in case it doesn’t, I wanted all of you to be prepared.”

In a talk he gave in December 1991, Newell delivered his “maxims for a dedicated scientist” and his final admonition was to “choose a final project that outlasts you.” Soar was that project for Newell, but his meaningful words in support of communication and public relations live on as well

It seems we have long taken the remote for granted, but take a minute to think about its liberating qualities. We’re now a heartbeat away from a channel change when years ago we had to get up off the couch to make the move from CBS to NBC. We’ve got so many more choices today and the remote enables us to access them with impunity.

The remote’s single greatest contribution, however, is how it has freed us from having to watch the inanity and absurdity of commercials. As soon as a program pauses for a series of ads, we’re on the remote and moving to another network. We just can’t take it any more.

To illustrate this point, here’s what we saw in one half hour when we painfully put aside the remote and let the ads run a few days ago:

• The ad agency for KFC treated us to a grandfather clamping a headlock on his grandson in an argument over whether the side orders mom and dad would bring home should be mashed potatoes and gravy or “mac and cheese.” Fortunately, we learned, this kind of familial infighting is no longer necessary because free sides are now the order of the day at KFC.

• State Farm rescued two young men who somehow made the mistake of parking their car in the middle of a buffalo herd to enjoy a cheeseburger. When a buffalo rammed into their car, the young men were saved by singing the jingle, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” and being magically transported to a State Farm office.

• Domino’s showed off its new pizza oven sandwiches and Wendy’s touted its berry almond salad. Let us know if your sandwich or salad look anything remotely like the stacked sandwiches and beautifully arranged salad depicted in the ads the next time you order from Domino’s or visit the drive-through at Wendy’s.

• Folks on the ad for Golden Corral were absolutely ecstatic that the restaurant chain has introduced cotton candy to its dessert menu, surpassing its seemingly insurmountable chocolate waterfall.

• We watched in amazement as a woman dressed in a “snuggie” body suit embarrassed herself by rolling on the floor to pick up dirt only to learn that Pine Sol can do that much, much more effectively.

This is the best the creative geniuses in America’s ad agencies can do? Corporations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for this dreck year after year despite the fact that research shows consumers remember little or nothing about ads a day after they have viewed them. How do advertisers get a handle on America’s rapidly diminishing attention span? How do they get us to sit up and take notice in that brief 30-second creative spot? How do they turn those 30 seconds into an actual purchase? It’s a very, very tough assignment, but surely they can do better.

I am fighting the urge to add this to a list of developments that demonstrate the decline and fall of our civilization. I want to place it alongside the demagoguery and outright stupidity that runs rampant on TV “news” networks each day, the distortion of Christian values by the political right, the absurd utterings we find almost daily on Facebook and Twitter, the wasteland that passes for pop music and film comedy today.

You can’t escape the feeling that our intelligence is being insulted every day with an appeal to the lowest common denominator. The foundation of all of this drivel is the belief that the American public is stupid. Perhaps I value my remote most of all because it keeps me from the saddening reminder that maybe those ad execs, TV commentators, political activists and consultants, and second- and third-rate artists are right.

And even when you score a big hit in the media the story can contain errors or misrepresent some aspect of your institution or program. I’ll not forget opening up the business section of the New York Times many years ago to see a trend story I had pitched running across the top of an inside page. The story included Stanford, Michigan and the university I worked for at the time. I was ecstatic. Not only did the piece highlight an area of business education we wanted to promote, it grouped my second-tier institution with two of the leading universities in the country. Home run.

While I was figuratively circling the base on Monday morning the phone rang. Business school dean. Kudos all around, I thought. Uh, no. The dean, already predisposed to think anyone who worked for Stanford was far superior to me, wanted to know why the story’s accompanying photo featured Stanford students and not students from his school. He turned my homer into a ground-rule double, at best.

I’ve never heard anyone say, “We get way too much media coverage.” Media relations is pretty much an unwinnable game. That’s why I have long advocated that college and university PR shops avoid making them the spotlight of their public relations programs. This caution should be particularly apropos today as the impact of traditional news media continues to diminish. Effective media relations is an important element of any comprehensive public relations program, but it must not be permitted to define your success.

I’ve done media relations long enough and hard enough that I feel like I have seen and heard it all. That’s why I feel qualified to offer up my “10 questions most frequently asked of media relations professionals in higher education.” I’m asking the media relations pros out there, How many of these questions or ones like them, have you had to deal with?

1. Doesn’t someone at the New York Times want to interview the president?
2. The guy gave us $1 million, for God’s sake. Can’t you get the news media to cover that?
3. Sure, you can get news coverage for the easy stuff, the stuff the media want to cover. But why can’t you get coverage of the great work we are doing in Boolean algebra or stochastic modeling?
4. (If your ranking went up in the U.S. News & World Report survey): What took them so long to start recognizing the excellence of our faculty and students?
5. (If your ranking went down in U.S. News & World Report ranking survey): Why aren’t we getting good PR like those schools ahead of us?
6. Don’t we need a big-name PR agency to get national press coverage?
7. Why can’t we get the news coverage we deserve?
8. Why weren’t we in that Times story about mating fruit flies? We have the best guy in the country on that subject on our faculty.
9. Why can’t we get the kind of good media coverage they get at (fill in the blank) college across town?
10. We have the most innovative curriculum in higher education. Why can’t you get media coverage of that?