Perception Management / Ali Saydam

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How to Manage Communication in Turkey

Preface by James E. Grunig, Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, University of Maryland, USA Translated by Robert Johnson

Remzi Kitabevi

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Perception Management

PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT Ali Saydam www.alisaydam.com © Remzi Kitabevi, 2013 All rights reserved. Reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission. Editor: Carol Steven Yürür ISBN 978-975-14-1559-2 First Edition: June 2013 Production & Distribution Remzi Kitabevi A.Ş. Akmerkez, E3-14, 34337 Etiler-İstanbul Certificate no: 10705 Tel.: +90 212 282 2080 Fax: +90 212 282 2090 www. remzi.com.tr post@remzi.com.tr Printed at Remzi Kitabevi A.Ş. 100. Yıl Matbaacılar Sitesi, 196, Bağcılar-İstanbul Certificate no: 10648


Contents

Contents

Preface........................................................................................7 Who Knows?...........................................................................11 CHAPTER I Three Presentations, Three Experiences......................19 CHAPTER II What a dilemma!................................................................47 CHAPTER III An Overall View................................................................65 CHAPTER IV A Modus Operandi for Communications....................91 1. Stakeholders.................................................................96 2. Target Audience..........................................................99 3. One-way/Two-Way, Symmetrical/Asymmetrical Communication......105 4. Image and Perception..............................................116 5. Relationship and Communications.......................126 6. Slogan and Message.................................................134 7. Innovation and Creativity.......................................141 8. 3P.................................................................................145 9. Vertical and Horizontal Integration......................148 10. Personal Brand and Celebrity.................................152 11. 3C and 3I rule............................................................172 12. Customer and Client................................................184

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CHAPTER V Fundamental Rules of Perception Management.......191 1. You Must Respect the Values of the Target Audience.....................................................................193 2. You Must Honor the Culture of the Target Audience.....................................................................207 3. You Must Demonstrate an Approach that Exceeds Expectations......................................229 4. You Must Not Create Confusion..........................247 5. You Must Focus on Results....................................262 6. If You Don’t Measure It, Don’t Do It................268 7. You Must Base Your Approach on Reality.........285 8. You Must Repeat It..................................................299 9. You Must Manage Differentiation........................310 10. You Must Manage the Visuality Properly............322 11. You Should Appeal to Emotion More Than Reason..............................................................332


Preface

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Preface

I

n March 2009, I had the honor of delivering the final lecture in a lecture series on Weltanschauung (or world view) a conference about public relations sponsored by the Bersay Communication Institute in Istanbul. This lecture was delivered during my first trip to Turkey, and I must confess that I knew little about Turkey or about Turkish public relations before I arrived in the country. I was impressed greatly by what I found, however. I learned that the Bersay Communications Consultancy was the largest communication firm in Turkey and that Ali Saydam, its founder and chief executive, was one of the leading communication consultants in Turkey. I was impressed that a public relations firm would sponsor a six-month long lecture series on a topic as academic and esoteric as the role of world view in public relations. I had dinner and a discussion with most of the staff members of Bersay, and our conversation was equivalent to a graduate seminar in public relations in the United States. At another lunch, I met a number of senior communication executives of major Turkish corporations; and our discussions reminded me a great deal of a meeting of the Arthur Page Society (a U.S. association of senior corporate communication executives). I also was surprised to learn that my book Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management had


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been translated into Turkish and apparently was widely read and, I hope, used. In short, I felt completely at home in Istanbul talking with both young public relations practitioners and senior communication executives. I was especially comfortable talking with Ali Saydam about his experiences and knowledge of both public relations theory and practices. We all used mostly the same language and seemed to be applying the same principles of public relations, such as the strategic management role of public relations; twoway symmetrical communication, dialogue, and respect for stakeholders; social responsibility and ethics; and the importance of research and evaluation in public relations practice as well as in academic research. As similar as our thinking was, however, I never forgot that Americans and Turks have different cultures and different histories. Even though we think similarly about public relations there will always be subtle differences in how we think and behave. Ali Saydam points out in this book that it was difficult for him to write about public relations in Turkish without using many English words because so much of the literature and theory of the discipline originated in the United States. However, throughout the book Ali strives to think about and explain perception management as a Turk would, not as a Turk who is simply repeating American concepts. It was exciting for me, therefore, to read this book and to try to understand my chosen discipline from a Turkish perspective. As I read the book, I was impressed by the depth of Mr. Saydam’s knowledge and experience and his ability to merge his practical experiences with theory. He points out


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that theory is much more difficult than practice. Then he goes on to demonstrate that an experienced practitioner can master theory and use it to explain and interpret what he has experienced. I personally advocate a theory of generic principles together with specific applications as a way to explain the nature of global public relations. Such a theory states that, at an abstract level, the concepts of public relations are common in most cultures both in political and economic contexts. At the same time, these generic concepts must be applied differently in these different settings. Thus, in that sense public relations will be both similar and different in different countries. It is in that sense that the subtitle of this book, How to Manage Communication in Turkey, is important. Public relations experts and their clients from countries other than Turkey will feel comfortable reading and using this book. The same will be true for clients of Turkish communication firms from other countries who want to do business in Turkey. The theoretical concepts are generic to them as well as to their Turkish counterparts. Yet the examples of applications of these concepts in Turkey are thoroughly Turkish. The generic concepts and specific applications discussed in the book will be extremely important to anyone who wants to invest in Turkey or to conduct business there. It was a pleasure for me to be able to read this important book in English after it has originally been published in Turkish. It has expanded my knowledge of Turkish public relations and has given my mind access to the ideas of one of the most important thinkers in public relations in Turkey.


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I strongly recommend it to scholars, students, and managers who both want to understand public relations in general and who want to understand public relations in Turkey in particular. James E. Grunig Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, University of Maryland College Park, Maryland, USA


Who Knows?

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Who Knows?

Habe nun, ach! Philosophie, Juristerei und Medizin, Und leider auch Theologie Durchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn. Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor! Und bin so klug als wie zuvor; All that philosophy can teach, The lore of jurist and of leech, I’ve mastered, ah! and sweated through Theology’s dead deserts, too, Yet, here, poor fool! for all my lore, I stand no wiser than before. Now, I, the pitiful fool, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust, Erster Teil, Nacht)


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Who Knows?

F

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eneryolu, a modest and charming neighborhood on the Anatolian (Asian) side of Istanbul, was where my childhood has passed. My father, a civil service officer and a typical middle-class pater familias, had the means to send both me and my older brother to the German High School. Most of my friends attended LycÊe de Saint Joseph, a French school, which was where I wanted to go. Though I passed the aptitude exam for entrance and came in fourth, my father decided on the German High School because it offered a fifty percent discount on the second student from the same household and because I would benefit from my brother’s textbooks. Though he completed his higher education in France, my father believed that in the future German culture would have a greater impact globally. I still think this was the main reason for his decision. The first day of every month was when baklava(*) or similar desserts could be found on our dinner table. As for fruit, we never bought more than the number of people in our family. My father was, and always had been, proud of the fact that he did not owe a single cent to anyone.

(*) Baklava: The famous Turkish sweet pastry.


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Back then there were no computers, televisions or DVD players. I had to make my own toys. I could not afford a wheel with ball bearings, so I had to mount wooden wheels on my cart. They were literally on fire by the time I raced down the Selamiçeşme(*) Bridge, a popular race track for my peers. Then came the blue bicycle, a gift for my circumcision, a new possession for me to repair and work on all the time. If a wheel went flat, I would patch it with some hot rubber until the inner tube fell to pieces. Still, this blue bike was the apple of my eye. My pistols were handmade too, and my handicrafts were taken to new levels as I frequently stitched my football or reattached the soles of my sneakers with the glue my father brought in from the Quadrat wheel factory. Being the youngest of the household meant doing certain chores. I was the courier between the grocery store and the house. Many of our childhood weapons were also our own handiwork, swords, little poppers to throw arrow root seeds and, of course, our volleyball field. A pot with the bottom knocked out was our basketball hoop, which I put up with the help of my brother by the gazebo in our backyard. It was again my dear brother who stood by me while I practiced to become the next basketball star just by throwing a ball into the pot. Except for the occasional assistance I received from him, I catered to my own needs, which is possibly the reason for a comfortable boarding experience at Istanbul Boys’ High School, one of the oldest, internationally renowned high schools in Turkey, and then later in Bern, Switzerland. And strange as it may be, this is probably the reason I was always afraid

(*) Selamiçeşme: Next neighborhood next to Feneryolu.


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of being alone. Not because I wanted to but just because that was how things were. Again, this is why I wrote this book, “This is the way things are. I needed a toy, just like when I was a kid, and I am afraid of being alone…” Let me explain why “I needed a toy.” I have been focusing on the issue for years, but never had a chance to gather enough references to fully express myself. Perceiving and Perceptions are about nothing more than two traits peculiar to human kind: the mind and the heart. Unfortunately, I have never come across a single study or doctrine that built perception management on both of these pillars without prioritizing one over the other. Not a single one has given these two traits their due. *** Communications is a multi-disciplinary and applied science. This was actually an advantage for me. Encouraged by my cumulative experience and know-how, I shared all of my material on perception management with my colleagues, students, clients and those attending my conferences. Over time, this method became systematized, and after various applications and tests, I was delighted to finally observe some significant success. Since communication is generally undertaken with the mind, a contradictory single-faceted approach to its versatility, the results were supposed to be universal, but were inevitably handled and applied by dominant principles. However, all effective rules regarding processes of decisionmaking and persuasion are undeniably driven by the human heart and conscience. That is the very reason why the core of communications was not universal at all, but rather related to personal history. Furthermore, at a deeper level, it had certain attributes that were both local and national.


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The first time I sounded off on these issues, my words sounded a bit eerie, even for me. It was my naïve, childish step at “making my own toy”, in a field where American resources had left their mark on every concept and term from how to write a press release, to how to manage a crisis or use body language to communicate with employees, write a speech for a spokesperson or a leader and define the target audience. Yet, it would have been only too easy to be crushed by the overwhelming majority of those who defined their existence with principles like globalization, universal thought and acting circular (two-dimensional) while thinking global (three-dimensional). Their references were from the West and though the conditions were almost totally different, they insisted on defining themselves with these references. What is odd, and I mean odd enough to merit attention, was that it required we take advantage of globally valid fundamental principles and cumulative experience and know-how because of the rational dimension of communication. However, what actually determined the result was not the rational dimension of the issue but heart and conscience, which together form the essential foundation for perceiving and perceptions. An attempt to manage conscience and the heart solely with the mind could turn the sought-after success into a total disaster. After working for 15 years to bridge the gap between theory and practice, I must have concluded that it was time to make my own toy, just like I had back in Fener­ yolu, and so I mustered up the courage to “pick up the pen”. In spite of my childlike courage, the fear of being alone, or maybe the fear of starting alone, simply did not leave me. Therefore, with certain hesitation, to prevent the fear and to obtain the permission to let myself go, I had some of the masters of the business read some sections


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of my work. They gave me a partial permission. I say “partial” because they flagged certain sections with warnings like “Don’t you ever publish these.” However, I have published everything, despite their admonitions and hope to be forgiven because it is absolutely impossible to display or introduce something different or new by conforming to the will of the majority. All of the opinions in this book regarding Perception Management and 11 Basic Principles are open to discussion and further development because the means of production, products, production and service processes, business conduct and the “market”, which shapes all of these, is changing at a stunning pace. Communications will inevitably be required to keep up with and respond to the real needs of the market. The book you hold in your hands is my attempt to lift the thick curtain that hides perception management, which I believe is a window into the heart and mind of communication. Please join me as we attempt to draw the curtain back fully and view the world of communications from this perspective. Who knows, maybe then, not only mine but also your fear – if you have any – of being alone will melt away. Ali Saydam February, 2013 Istanbul

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