Mining PR Exec Lauds Peter Sandman

Letter from Geoff Kelly
Group Manager Corporate Communication
WMC Limited
Victorian President, Public Relations Institute of Australia

In "Sandman's Cagey Tactics" (readers' letter, Second Quarter 1999), the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force (NNWTF) seems to miss the point of Peter Sandman's magic.

I've worked with him a number of times, and his greatest impact isn't with the catchy concepts that are the hallmark of most high-profile consultants. It's his ability to reduce the outrage that corporate leadership feel when attacked by those they believe use bad science to justify their own righteous outcomes. For issue advocates, the exquisite weakness of most large corporations is their tendency to dumb down to an angry or fearful response when faced by a strong high-profile attack by groups prepared to play hard and dirty with media and public sentiment. They then play them like a fiddle.

Sandman sells a powerful alternative, but one that comes at a price. He provokes corporations to reassess the issue and listen to communities. As the NNWTF allude, this won't work if it is not backed by genuine flexibility and willingness to change. No group wants to talk for the sake of it. The magic is that the corporate culture has to change, and industrial czars have to share control over outcomes with outsiders who have a stake in the consequences. If you've been used to calling the shots in a major company, that is no fun at all. However, Sandman often persuades these reluctant maidens that the alternative is worse.

The result? It cuts the knees off groups who play fast and dirty to achieve an ideological goal with little connection with real community interest. It also humbles corporate people who thought that they knew enough, being people of good values and having done thorough internal research on the project or issue. They often discover new and better ways to achieve their results working with community allies they never dreamed possible.

Peter Sandman? Take another look. He's dangerous to dinosaurs on both sides of a controversy.

--Geoff Kelly