You are on Page 1 of Section 15

● Introduction & Index ● What is PR ● Job Expectations ● Types of Media ● Building Relationships ● Media, Hams & FCC Rules ● The Basic News Release ● Interviews and Live ● Making your own show ● Easy P.R. ● Public Service Events ● Piggy-back to Events ● Pictures NOW! ● P.R. Research Aids ● Making Friends ● ARES® PIO ● Final Exam Information Next Page

Section 15 - Making Friends in Disagreements Goals of this section Learn basic skills in resolving conflict and restoring cooperative activity. Be able to define PR goals separate from “winning” in a disagreement. No matter how good you are at PR, some things will always go wrong. (The elephants can and do step on Mrs. Mayor’s flowers). The event and consequence may or may not have been totally unintentional, but you have a disagreement to deal with. Here are a few rules to playing the game - and winning. If at all possible, DO NOT USE EMAIL Face to face is best Phone is second There is something about email that has been noted in business and psychology. It often has an “angry”tone to it even when that is not the intended emotion. That’s why there is such rabid use of the emoticons If your email has even the slightest hint of annoyance, it probably will be received as full of venom. 7 steps that work #1 Define “winning.” Remember what your goal as a PIO is (go back to the beginning if you don’t know - it’s to make friends. Do you and your friends always agree? -Probably not. You can disagree and still be friends. You disagree, but respect each other. Your goal then is not necessarily to win them over to your side, but to create or re-establish a relationship of mutual respect and cooperative action. They may never agree about the point of argument, but you can still productively work together. #2 Listen. This is a lot harder than you think! 90% of the time we are not listening at all but thinking about and rehearsing our next line. We have a logical argument or a script we want to follow and, darn it, we’re going to play it out! You may do so and get to the end of your script, but lose the game.