Obtaining buy-in with key stakeholders is an important process of building a successful PR program. Building consensus ensures that everyone in the organization supports the PR activities and the approach you’ve chosen.

Another reason that building consensus is important is that it provides the opportunity to obtain additional ideas and understand objections that may not have occurred to you. When you solicit others’ opinions, you obtain new ideas, data points, and perspectives that lead to a better PR program. By failing to build consensus, you risk missing opportunities to leverage the power of PR and how to best leverage it. Think of the political genius of Abraham Lincoln and his effectiveness at bringing together his rivals to create hi cabinet after he won the presidency. In her book “Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin documents how Lincoln, by embracing a wide range of opinions, was able to develop a course of action that ultimately allowed him to preserve the Union and win the Civil War.

Similarly, PR managers can make wiser decisions by asking executives, the board of directors, and other key stakeholders to scrutinize their PR program. To develop the best course of action, they need to surround themselves with people who don’t always agree with them, listen to them carefully, and incorporate the best ideas into their program.

Building consensus for PR helps you develop lasting relationships with key stakeholders within the organization. It helps make them feel included and empowered and that their opinion is valued. Conversely, failing to obtain buy-in can quickly lead to bruised egos. People may think you purposely keep them out of the loop, or they may get fired up, believing that you’re not doing what they think needs to be done. Ultimately, they may fail to understand the value of PR and cut your budget in favor of other organizational priorities.

In “Getting to Yes,” authors Roger Risher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton discuss how critical it is to allow others to participate in the process. “If they are not involved in the process, they are hardly likely to approve the product. It is that simple,” they write. “If you want the other side to accept a disagreeable conclusion, it is crucial that you involve them in the process of reaching the conclusion.”

To read the contributed side bar from Bruce Patton, cofounder of the Harvard Negotiation Project and coauthor of the best-selling book “Getting to Yes,” and to learn more about building consensus for PR programs, read “Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR.”

Written by Jennifer Gehrt & Colleen Moffitt with Andrea Carlos