MY FINAL WORDS.SOME FINAL QUESTIONS.SOME FINAL ANSWERS.
BEPS HAS UNANIMOUSLY DENOUNCED THE BYLAW CHANGES
Part 1
James E. Lukaszewski
ABC, Fellow IABC; APR, Fellow PRSA; BEPS Emeritus
Let me sum up where I believe we are by posing a few relatively simple questions:
Q1. Does the PRSA Board of Directors have the authority to pursue bylaw amendments like this?
A1. Yes, I believe they do.
Q2. Is the Board obligated to follow the PRSA Code Of Ethics in the process?
A2. Yes, but I believe they have ignored much of the code. They didn’t ask me (with 35 years’ experience largely in compliance and Public Relations PR ethics).
Q3. In your opinion is the process the board is using violating the PRSA Code of Conduct?
A3. No. The new code is all about inspiring, educating, and motivating ethical behavior. Rather than violations, the code defines what improper behavior looks like under the code.
In this case:
▪ The secrecy (Interfering with the free flow of information). ▪ Staging the process in a way that prevents broad participation (Interfering with the free flow of information). ▪ Disinformation, (Honesty) “only 20% of PRSA members are APR”. True, but that’s nearly 4000 members! Plus a like number of APRs who have retired or left the practice. It’s the personal achievements of more than 4000 of your colleagues, the professional satisfaction of more than 4000 of your colleagues, and the legacies of more than 4000 of your colleagues, that are threatened and being disrespected. ▪ View BEPS Rebuttal Resolution for much more devastating detail.
Q4. What do you want?
A4. Abandon this flawed and suspect process in favor of a completely open process.
Q5. Why?
A5. This is a valid and important, perhaps existential question for PRSA. The Society should have the opportunity to consider the question as a whole body. I believe there are many ways to accomplish Board objectives without sacrificing the accomplishments of any PRSA member.
Q6. What does an open process look like?
A6. Use the process that was employed when the PRSA Code Of Conduct was revised 1999-2000
▪ Announce the effort as widely as possible. ▪ Circulate explanations, questions, and answers widely and repeatedly. ▪ Establish an easily found web page to host all the information. ▪ Trigger conversation, discussion, and debate in the districts, in the chapters, the sections, and committees, whatever ways will involve the most members. ▪ Board members should hit the road to articulate the proposition and participate in the discussions and debates. ▪ Do Board funded objective research going forward to determine the impact of this open process. ▪ Conduct Board funded professionally-led focus groups across the country. ▪ Hire a Board funded outside ethics firm to monitor and advise on the process and to make recommendations. ▪ Take on all comments, questions, objections, anger, irritations, departures, and alternative ideas. ▪ Then let the chips fall where they may. ▪ It’s fair to say that the Society, at that time, as a whole was genuinely excited about the new code even before it came to a vote. There was division (there was supposed to be), a number of people resigned mostly because the new code failed to have, like the old one, a provision to punish violators.
This remains a controversy to this day further complicated by a frightening bylaw amendment passed two years ago by a previous Board establishing a grievance process that permits one member to rat out another anonymously, establishes an inquisition like investigative council, and provides for punishment. But that’s a battle for another day.
Q7. What is at stake?
A7. It’s the personal achievements of more than 4000 of your colleagues, the professional satisfaction of more than 4000 of your colleagues, and the legacies of more than 4000 of your colleagues, that are threatened and being disrespected. And the aspirations of hundreds of practitioners coming up who hope to gain the prestige and success of achieving APR.
Q8. What is in this for you, Jim?
A8. I am 79, my client days ended a couple of years ago. My hearing has deteriorated. This is the discussion of a threat to your future, your accomplishments, your aspirations, your career hopes, your legacy. It is also a lesson for future Boards, that although openness may be sloppy, slow, and irritating, it tends to generate solid loyalty. Engagement builds constructive commitment. But that’s just me and my experience in building reconciliation from controversy, conflict, and confrontation.
I joined PRSA in 1974*, they published my first public relations “how to” article nationally in 1975. Between then and now publishing dozens of my articles, and other writings. During the '90's PRSA published and marketed four of my books. For a time from 1999 to 2010 I was allowed to do one, sometimes two, national webinars each month, attended by thousands of PRSA members. That stopped in 2011 when my wife, Barbara, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. We returned from New York to Minnesota that year to care for her. Barbara died in August 2019.
I’ve spoken at more than 20 ICONs, half a dozen to a dozen chapters a year. Been involved with BEPS and its predecessor
Section Ethics Committees for more than 30 years. I am a product of PRSA. You and the thousands of PR practitioners, educators, leaders of all kinds all across America have heard of me because PRSA provided a platform as they have for thousands of other Society members. I've had my day, but yours is now at stake.
I am grateful to PRSA, I am committed to PRSA, I am devoted to PRSA, I have a professional debt to PRSA that is beyond my ability to repay.
Remember though, it’s your tomorrow we are discussing here. If you fail to stand for it, protect, and defend it, there are people at work even inside PRSA daily to give it to someone else.
We have a Board off the tracks, influenced by a few insiders, some former insiders, many of whom left PRSA years ago over the same issue. Why the Board chose to sacrifice any PRSA member’s accomplishments, for any reason, should be prevented, and paths to progress found that avoid harming anyone.
▪ NOW It’s up to you. ▪ Time to raise your hand, stand, and speak up. ▪ The game is on, break’s over. ▪ Ultimately, you will get the Society you deserve. ▪ What do you deserve?
*(yes, I know PRSA says my membership started in 1980, but PRSA headquarters lost and never found nearly a decade of records from the ‘70s)
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