Acting On Purpose

Communication is a physical act. Purposeful communication is an act of design. Walking across a room represents one form of communicating. So does sneezing or even smiling. Every moment of our days we communicate. What we communicate, however, is not always a certainty. People hear or see us and immediately draw some sort of conclusion.or make an initial judgement. If I laugh at a joke someone in the office tells, do I really believe the joke was funny? Maybe but not necessarily. No matter the answer, the interpretation of my act may not be accurate. Living in South Korea these days, I am exposed to a lot of Korean food. I eat some of it but do I like it?

Where public relations comes into play is when a person adds purpose to their act of communication. I may be laughing at that office joke but my intent is to let those around me know I am only being polite or sarcastic. I do not think that joke is funny. If the others accurately understand my insincerity, then I have communicated accurately. On a much broader scale, if I am the top executive of an international auto company and want everyone in the world to want one of my models, then it is vital that I do well at communicating the purpose of my communication because lots of money is riding on it.    

To add another layer to the act of communicating, the best kind of public relations occurs when one does more than simply put across their message in a way that people understand. To return to my earlier scenario, just because the people around me know I do not really believe that joke was funny does not make a public relations practitioner extraordinaire. To be even considered for such an accolade, I need to devise a way to establish mutual understanding between how all of us are reacting to the joke. This is where purposeful communication or public relations slides over into partnership or two-way empathy between the sender and receiver of a message.