Ms. InterPReted

"Ms. InterPReted" Co-Host Mary Beth West welcomes one of her long-time colleagues -- Susan Hart -- to discuss what's been a culmination of ethics issues witnessed and faced within the U.S.-based public relations trade association, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Susan Hart offers her viewpoints on PRSA's distant-prior years of organizational strengths, followed by a most precipitous descent in recent years of financial non-disclosures + discrepancies, lack of accountability, whistleblower retaliation, national leadership ethics issues, poor judgment . . . all begging the question of how anyone considering membership or certainly leadership in the national organization should approach due-diligence.

Show Notes

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:

What is Ms. InterPReted?

Public Relations stands as one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted areas of business and organizational management. With Fletcher Marketing PR Founder and CEO Kelly Fletcher and Senior Strategist Mary Beth West, we’re here to turn around PR’s own bad PRess, cut through the nomenclature, and demystify public relations as the best pathway to create, grow and amplify the roots of positive management, communications, culture and careers -- for success that matters.