 |
| Dustin Siggins |
In college, I thought the best way to get things done was to go straight to the top: the university President.
You can imagine how she responded to that bold and shortsighted 21-year-old me: mostly by not making appointments, largely ignoring what I said during Student Senate meetings and generally finding reasons to keep our conversations short.
This failure taught me that influencing a top decisionmaker goes a lot better when someone else has your back—in my case, student groups, local media voices, faculty members and donors.
Most early and mid-career public relations professionals are tempted towards two career paths: do what you’re told in order to move up the chain or blow past norms in an effort to land senior roles. Both have significant risks—the predictable path can mean being stuck for years, while blowing past norms can mean alienating colleagues, managers and clients (or, in my case, college Presidents).
Most importantly, both approaches risk not building a network of internal allies who can be your advocate to the boss—or even his/her manager—because you’re either waiting for permission to rise in the ranks or alienating everyone with whom you work.
The best way to rise through the ranks relies on the strengths of both approaches to proactively take ownership of your career while also strategically building alliances with people who can advocate on your behalf.
Four steps towards success
What I’ve learned is that building career-propelling alliances requires four major steps, each built on the one before, to increase one’s skills, strategic capabilities and overall value to an organization.
Go beyond taking orders. Don’t just write an op-ed; interview its author, do some original research and make it the kind of piece that lands a tier above what the boss expected. Provide the monthly report—but in a way that shows panache and a deep understanding of the value your function brings to the organization.
Once you’ve shown the boss that you can turn lead into gold, it’s time to proactively be in touch with key stakeholders to maximize the value of your successes. These are the marketing folks who turn press coverage into digital collateral, the event planners who spread logos onto handouts and booths and the salespeople who use the air cover as credibility with prospective customers. Giving them another tool for the toolbox will be appreciated—and the start to building an effective network.
Now that you’ve made everyone else’s job easier, it’s time to help them help you. Get coffee with the salesperson, the HR lead and the operations director. Understand what they do, how they do it and on whom they rely so you can find the best stories to drive the company’s narrative.
Finally, ask your new best friends to bring ideas to you. They’ll be happy to do so, because you’re helping them raise their value within the organization as well as the people with whom they work.
“It’s scary to ask sales, product and other functions for help,” said Dan Mazei, founder of Tangled Roots. “It will undoubtedly break you out of your comfort zone. You’ll have to think differently, say no and challenge your own team. However, it also earns the kind of trust and confidence that can make the communications function far more effective and also accelerate your own success inside the organization and beyond.”
“Diplomacy and soft skills are key here,” Mazei continued. “Delivering on KPIs and company goals require a very different set of skills and philosophies than building relationships, exhibiting empathy and volunteering mindspace that may cost you time and take years to hone.”
Bringing it in-house
Building relationships with those who aren’t in your direct chain of command is hard. It took me years to recognize its value, because I didn’t have the patience to realize that being well-intentioned isn’t enough if you are a bull in a china shop instead of the guy who can unlock new doors.
But if all you do is wait for the boss to give you accolades, a raise and a promotion, you’re stuck within her strengths and shortcomings.
“When I left journalism and went to in-house PR, the skills came through, but I didn’t have any training in collaboration or strategic thinking,” said Idea Grove Chief Executive Officer Scott Baradell. “Being shy and introverted made building connections even more difficult. Thankfully, I had a boss who guided me to ‘look for the story,’ using journalism skills to see stories walking down the hall or over a cup of coffee.”
Baradell said he later earned a Master’s of Business to continue learning how to find the most impactful stories. “Understanding how the accounting function worked and being able to process business goals helped me rise from being a mid-tier writer to running the entire communications department.”
The good news is that all of this alliance-building is well within the skills of even the most basic public relations professional. After all, you’d never promote a campaign about a lawsuit without having the top campaign lawyer heavily involved in message building and being the face of some of the stories. Similarly, proactively approaching your HVAC technicians who are on the front lines brings back customer stories that can become part of the company’s overarching narrative.
And that’s why good comm pros know how to integrate every other department back into our world. It’s one thing to tell customers about all the great things a widget can do—and that will sell a lot of widgets. But a widget story gets a lot more robust when the research & development engineers provide the quotes.
Eliminating silos, creating success and propelling your career
The best managers encourage and empower subordinates to develop relationships across the company. But some people want to protect their position more than move the ball forward.
“When you’re focused on holding the ball, you lose sight of the bigger picture,” said Meredith Klein, who runs the Substack Meredith & The Media. “You might slowly advance the ball, but you’re regressing in the larger championship focus. You may not realize how your position, function, company or industry have changed because you haven’t looked up in a while. Having your own back and owning your career must be balanced with building allies and being generous with your time and expertise.”
Unless you’re staging a coup—my professional advice: don’t—you shouldn’t alienate managers, even as you build powerful relationships elsewhere in the company. After all, they sign your paychecks and probably have more cachet with leadership. They also probably have more experience, so keeping them apprised of your activities will help you stick within boundaries, learn from them and position them to benefit from your success.
So, if you’re prone to waiting on someone else’s permission to move forward, ask the boss how to be proactive. And if you’re prone to being the bomb in the office, recommend to the boss how your being proactive benefits her and the organization.
Either way, you’ll start on the path to eliminating silos, creating more success and building a career of your own making.
***
Dustin Siggins is a former Capitol Hill journalist and Founder of the public affairs and PR firm Proven Media Solutions.
The reporter said no. You took it hard. But rejection can actually make you stronger. Here's how.
Bringing in business is an implicit requirement for those in professional services. Here's a quick guide to how business development is done in the professional services sector, what type of rainmaker is most successful and six strategies for 2025.
