Our last post on the McKinsey article has generated a great deal of comment and discussion, none more insightful than that of Ed Block, one of the public relations industry’s most respected and revered leaders.  His thoughts follow.

First, the current financial meltdown (and associated scandals) was not the beginning of the destruction of corporate reputations — it was the final nail in the coffin. But I digress.

In your post last week on who should own corporate reputation, I think you are correct in identifying the importance of where responsibility should be delegated in a corporate organization. I’m from the old school (the Arthur Page School) in the conviction that the job belongs to the chief PR officer. That’s how it was in my generation — and guys like Larry Foster (J&J), Ron Rhody (Bank of America) and so many others owned that position. Unfortunately, too many latter day PR executives came to define their jobs as “communications” and lost their authority and skills as councilors. (Communications is overhead, wise counseling is value added.)

Nevertheless, you are correct in saying that the reputation function must be delegated to the executive who is best prepared, regardless of functional responsibilities. And the CEO must trust this person — and make it known to other senior executives. But more importantly, the person delegated this responsibility must earn it day in and day out, not merely through delegation from the CEO, but by working quietly behind the scenes to help other functional senior executives make the right decisions and become reliant on his/her advice, counsel and resources.

Based on my own experience, I was welcomed by other senior executives because I was always at the ready to pitch in to help them solve the problems they were wrestling with by staying in the background and letting them take the credit when things worked out successfully. Another way I was useful to at least two CEOs I served was helping drive his decisions. Many times, the CEO had already made his decision but wanted to let other senior executives vent and have a say. My role was to be the guy who — at the right moment — would say that dog won’t hunt. That way the CEO could signal his general agreement with my advice without repudiating the others. That sure shortened a lot of meetings that would otherwise gone on for hours.

Frankly, I could do that because I knew as much about the business as the other senior executives, something we were trained to do and worked at from our earliest days. Today’s PR executives mostly aren’t equipped to do that — and demonstrate their lack of knowledge when they open their mouths in top management meetings, thereby destroying their credibility

Ed Block is the former Senior Vice President of public relations, advertising and employee information at AT&T. He is a member of the Arthur Page Society Hall of Fame and the recipient of the 1997 PRSA Golden Anvil.