Michael Donnolley.
Former journalist, consultant and in-house public relations manager Michael Donnolley with a cautionary tale.
By the early 1990s, Nick Greiner’s "warm and dry winds" of public sector administrative reform were whipping up a storm with my then employer, Prospect Electricity.
Prospect delivered electricity to the people of Western Sydney. Compared with the state’s other electricity distributors, it could have been regarded as progressive.
It had introduced some serious workplace reforms, embraced technology, started employing senior staff from outside the industry and promoted the wise – not greatest – use of electricity.
But one lingering problem still grated in Macquarie Street: The electricity distributors were still an arm of local government. The chair and directors of these big businesses could only be elected members of their constituent councils.
To break this, the state government appointed an independent expert – effectively a consultant – to report on the strengths and weaknesses of governance and management and to recommend change.
The constituent councils and their members thought this was a bridge too far. No-one was going anywhere without a fight.
To management the need for change was obvious but council was still the boss.
Management had to implement council’s decisions and directions, but the individuals involved had lofty career ambitions and generous salary packages to consider. No-one wanted to be seen as obstructing the Government or the Minister.
I was way down the pecking order as media relations manager, not an electrical engineer or local government administrator, and not even descendant or spouse of anyone else in the organisation.
Tom Peters’ slash and burn theory of administrative reform had not yet reached the electricity industry, so I reported to the manager, corporate communication, and sat alongside a community relations manager, an internal communications manager, a staff publications manager and his assistant plus photographers, typesetters and a receptionist.
As a former newspaper reporter, ministerial press secretary and inhouse PR hack, I thought a stoush with the government looked like fun.
My superiors, though, were terrified. I think they envisaged an Ann Frank future, living in a Parramatta attic, waiting for Government apparatchiks to drag them out and clip jumper leads to their private parts while demanding to know who had been sarcastic about the minister).
They insisted staff could not be seen to be in any fight. To follow Council’s directions in this regard, Prospect had to engage consultants.
On my advice they called in my Dad’s old PR firm, a generous fee was agreed to and two ready, willing and able political street fighters were sent into the fray.
For our chairman this was a match made in heaven.
Management and the Council were in their own corners and the inquiry proceeded smoothly.
Prospect had a lot of stakeholders and as time progressed the need for a planned response to the report and its criticisms became obvious.
We learnt the report was going to be tabled on a Thursday, so we needed someone to be briefed and available for comment to the metropolitan press straight after Question Time in Parliament.
Written responses for western Sydney weekly newspapers needed to be on editors’ desks first thing Friday.
The Council members needed detailed responses and, of incredible importance, was the need to beat the staff rumour mill.
It was agreed the best way of doing this would be for the GM to call and address a Friday breakfast meeting of all responsible staff.
If we were going to do this we needed time – and the Minister for Energy could provide this by giving us a copy of the report on embargo.
This required some high-level schmoozing, something our consultants did well, and he co-operated.
The corporate communication department discussed plans, requirements and capabilities and I was tasked (bureaucrat speak for asked) to draw up a schedule for implementation.
I also plotted as to how I would pass the plan up the management chain.
The consultants and I worked well together so I handed them a copy at one of our regular clandestine meetings.
They took it to a meeting with Council and senior managers and little more was said.
A few days later, a senior executive walked into our office, handed money to the receptionist, and asked her to shout her clerical colleagues a cup of coffee.
Then he mustered the remaining “knowledge workers" into the manager’s office and asked if there were blinds that could be pulled down.
He may have even said, “Listen very carefully, I can say this only once.”
He then distributed copies of our plan.
My colleagues and I all looked in different directions.
We discussed it, nodded and agreed to implementation.
Always polite, the executive thanked us and left the room.
We all then walked in different directions until we struck a wall. Then we quoted Homer (Simpson) and wailed D’OH!
FOOTNOTE: The plan worked to plan. The consultants organised a room and excellent catering for us at the Wentworth Hotel and the chair and GM delivered good, strong responses to the report and the staff had a good breakfast.
The GM let my drive his new Holden Caprice back to Parramatta and off we went to a Council meeting. Imagine my feelings at midnight when I arrived home to find the Caprice keys in my pocket. The GM drove himself home in a Prospect-yellow delivery truck called a Bongo.
For the GM and I, our careers at Prospect did not last much longer.
I then set out to be a PR consultant.
In our parting conversation after a few short months later, my then boss assured me it wasn’t that I didn’t know what I was doing or advising. I was just hopeless at squeezing money out of clients.
A client meeting that morning had ended with a request for some menial task.
“Don’t worry, that’s easy, I’ll have it done before lunch,” I responded.
My boss turned a deep shade of beetroot. His jaw locked and silence reigned during our walk back to the office.
By then his complexion had eased to a moderate puce and blinking had appeared to resume.
Although his jaw remained clenched, he clearly enunciated: “Never tell a client that anything is easy.”
Michael Donnolley was once a journalist and PR hack. He know operates motels in Kyogle.