Remember Bill Lumbergh, the out-of-touch, acronym-spewing manager in the classic movie, Office Space? Brilliantly portrayed by Gary Cole, Lumbergh would either preface or respond to any positive suggestion by saying, ‘Yeah, um, so, we’re not going to do that.’ And, as every Repman reader knows, corporate America is chock full of Lumbergh-types, both male and female. And, they account for the massive inertia that hamstrings many of America’s best-known organizations.
We recently sustained a head-on collision with a Lumbergh who toiled in the middle management ranks of a client organization.
We’d been working with the client for some time and, if I do say so myself, producing Silver Anvil Award-winning work. But then, one day out of the clear blue, Lumbergh called our day-to-day account manager and said, ‘Yeah, so, um, we’re gonna go ahead and spend your fee on a cyber security upgrade instead.’ Say what? A cyber security upgrade instead of continuing a breakthrough image and awareness campaign? Talk about institutional creep.
We’ve fired, and been fired by, clients for myriad reasons over a 16-year period, but this was a first. I’ve met C-suite executives who don’t understand the strategic importance of public relations and chosen, instead to invest in a sales force expansion or build an in-house corporate communications function. But, I’ve never, ever, seen the plug pulled on communications and diverted to technology.
The decision was so unexpected and positively primordial in its thinking that even this garrulous blogger was left speechless for a time. But, I’ve rebounded and, instead, now see this as a cautionary tale for any Arthur W. Page, Council of PR Firms or PRSA Counselors Academy member who remains convinced that PR has earned a permanent ‘seat at the table’ and no longer need to justify our strategic role.
There are still plenty of Bill Lumbergh-types controlling the budgets of Fortune 500 corporations and ‘Yeah, so, um, if you think PR is bullet-proof then, so, um, yeah, we’re just gonna go ahead and spend those fees on a landscaping upgrade instead.’
