Susan Hart: PRSA, #PRethics and the Urgency of Accountability

09/02/21 • 18 min

In this episode during PRSA's #EthicsMonth, Mary Beth West interviews close colleague Susan Hart -- a past president of the PRSA Nashville Chapter, a past PRSA Nashville Chapter Hercules Award honoree, and a now-former / resigned PRSA College of Fellows member.

Susan voluntarily discontinued her 35-year membership in PRSA in 2018, in disgust with PRSA's National leadership cultural shift, after what she describes as "one of the most stressful experiences of (her) life" at the hands of PRSA National leadership, who infamously opposed ethics-driven bylaw reforms -- after secretly reversing course from prior assurances that measures would be supported.
In this interview, Susan discusses:

Accountability as the essential crux of what any leadership team must offer as a non-negotiable deliverable of its own cultural mindset
How leadership quickly falls down a slippery slope and point-of-no-return, when national leaders fail to conduct due diligence
"Say-do" disconnects -- when organizational mission and stated principles no longer match leadership behaviors
What the modus-operandi of "Operation Incompetence" entails with an escalating lack of financial transparency
How the good work of PRSA's local-level chapters is overshadowed and undermined when the national organizational leadership has entrenched unethical and unaccountable practices
Why curiosity by members is important and should not be demonized ... and why it's an ethical red-flag when any organizational leadership "kills the messenger" and instills fear of retaliation among a membership who become too fearful to ask valid questions.

FOLLOW #PRethics

FOLLOW Susan Hart:
Twitter: @susanhartpr

JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP CALLING FOR A BETTER PRSA:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ABetterPRSA

FOLLOW FLETCHER MARKETING PR:

Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR
Connect with Fletcher Marketing PR on LinkedIn
Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher
Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest

Accountability as the essential crux of what any leadership team must offer as a non-negotiable deliverable of its own cultural mindset
How leadership quickly falls down a slippery slope and point-of-no-return, when national leaders fail to conduct due diligence
"Say-do" disconnects -- when organizational mission and stated principles no longer match leadership behaviors
What the modus-operandi of "Operation Incompetence" entails with an escalating lack of financial transparency
How the good work of PRSA's local-level chapters is overshadowed and undermined when the national organizational leadership has entrenched unethical and unaccountable practices
Why curiosity by members is important and should not be demonized ... and why it's an ethical red-flag when any organizational leadership "kills the messenger" and instills fear of retaliation among a membership who become too fearful to ask valid questions.

FOLLOW #PRethics

FOLLOW Susan Hart:
Twitter: @susanhartpr

JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP CALLING FOR A BETTER PRSA:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ABetterPRSA

FOLLOW FLETCHER MARKETING PR:

Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR
Connect with Fletcher Marketing PR on LinkedIn
Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher
Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest

Previous Episode

Gini Dietrich: Agencies, Equality & Bringing Our Best to the PR Industry

Recorded on #WorldPRDay (#WPRD), Kelly and Mary Beth welcome one of the PR industry's most prominent and prolific thought leaders, Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks, an entire learning platform that Gini founded and her team manages, in service to the industry, including consulting work for fellow agency owners and entrepreneurs.

Gini opens up about her passion points for the industry, on both the positive / uplifting front as well as frustrating sides... and on the latter, including discrimination and misogyny that she has experienced first-hand as a business owner and public speaker.

In this episode of #MsInterPReted, Gini opens up about personal (and shocking) experiences in her own career, and how the up-and-coming generation in PR will not suffer fools gladly or tolerate the discriminatory burdens that have all-too-often persisted in PR and in business / society.

Gini also shares insights about other professional-practice ethics and qualities that hold great potential for the PR industry's advancement, if colleagues will embrace them.

FOLLOW Gini Dietrich and Spin Sucks:
Twitter: @SpinSucks @GiniDietrich
Website: http://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-community

FOLLOW FLETCHER MARKETING PR:

Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR
Connect with Fletcher Marketing PR on LinkedIn
Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher
Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest

Next Episode

Travis Parman -- CCO, AppHarvest: The #PRethics of a Strong Sustainability Story

In this conversation, Travis Parman shares his insights about:

How people sometimes "fall into public relations" from different fields ... and how he has evolved his ideas about what constitutes PR expertise as a former self-confessed "public relations purist";
Why his favorite Abraham Lincoln quote that he learned in high school helped chart his academic and career course toward public relations: "In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions";
Why diverse practitioners are so often the best public relations professionals: "They know how to read a room";
Ways that PR students should work to position themselves for thriving public relations careers, by bringing their diverse perspectives and backgrounds to the fore;
In what ways companies need to avoid knee-jerk responses to "diversity programs" that lump people of one diverse cohort together and inadvertently segregate them;
How one-dimensional, tactical and transactional "understandings" of PR pose some of the industry's biggest limitations that must be countered and overcome;
Why being too deferential can be a PR professional's most self-defeating behavioral modus operandi in growing their career;
Ways that cross-cultural and international standards differ -- and why public relations practitioners need to advance their game, including in the #PRethics arena and with full team involvement and buy-in.