Force For Good

Avoiding a choice between the lesser of two evils; communicating 'in the gray'

We like things simple. Black and white. But few issues that matter are so cut and dry.

Successful issue management often calls for the difficult task of communicating "in the gray."

In a corporate environment, we too often clam up in the midst of uncertain times. Lawyers caution against comment and risk-adverse leaders are all-too happy to take the advice to the extreme. A skillful leader will win trust and boost the confidence -- of employees, investors and other stakeholders -- by providing some measure of the challenges being faced and the relative prospects for success in the future. Avoiding hollow promises or insincere platitudes, the leader gives stakeholders a sense of just how serious the issue is and his/her relative confidence in a positive resolution, emphasizing what needs to be done immediately to move the ball forward. Constituents understand and forgive the lack of specifics if the leader has built up good will in the past with candid and accurate communication.

That's what it means to communicate "in the gray."

Media relations in such an environment can be even trickier. The mass media gravitate to simple "archetypes" or story lines. When a villain is readily apparent, media will naturally assume the competing person (or idea) is virtuous.

Life is often more complex than that. World events in the news show the difficulty of choosing between the ready-made alternatives:

• The recent election in Iran was almost certainly rigged. Peaceful protesters there call for international support against a repressive regime. But the Obama Administration has rightly been cautious in its response, even in its somewhat more vocal condemnations more than a week after the election, not wanting to provide credence to accusations of U.S. interference in Iranian affairs. Nuance is seldom cheered, and Obama continues to draw criticism for not taking a harder stance. Further complicating the issue is the unhappy choice between the two top candidates. Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is clearly an enemy of peace and freedom, but the leading opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi is no true reformer -- despite the inclination for many in the Western media to brand him a "moderate." Obama has wisely steered away from showing any support for Moussavi.
  .
  
• Strangely, the Obama Administration has shown no such reluctance to choose sides in another messy conflict, decrying the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya from power in Honduras. But Zelaya's actions that led up to his ouster -- moving to alter the country's constitution to increase his power and to strangle any opposition -- disqualify him for membership in the archetype of duly-elected Democratic leaders overthrown by a revolutionary coup d'etat. In fact, the Honduras Supreme Court had ordered the military to remove Zelaya for his unlawful actions. 

Corporate life can be messy, too. Constituents who find one course of action particularly unappealing will seek a quick and simple alternative. When there is no easy solution, no clear-cut winning move, don't fall into the trap of endorsing the lesser of two evils. Treat your constituents as adults. Talk about the unpleasant situation without promising an easy fix. Often that means the company itself must act as a game-changer to rise above the flawed choices that appear to be the only alternatives.

- Jon Harmon

Was Sanford's tearful apology way too much?

When is the emotional apology the right move to put scandal behind and to stop a spreading crisis?

I'm thinking of this, of course, because of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford with his tearful apologies this week to his wife and family, his staff and supporters, and to all the people of his state. 

Sanford, of course, had much explaining to do after his mysterious disappearance left aides and family in the dark, only to turn out that he'd taken a trip to Argentina to meet up with a woman with whom he had been having an illicit affair. In the less-than-proud tradition of disgraced politicians undone by their hormones, Sanford stood before the cameras and apologized. To his credit, he did not try to justify his actions and he seemed remarkably candid in his remarks.

But did he have to go on for so long? Did we really need so many details? Wouldn't he have been better off following this simple "Force for Good" advice for coming clean about a mistake: "Be honest. Keep it brief. Get off stage. Move on."

Others were quick to question whether his apology was the correct move in terms of crisis management.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, loudly argued against the wisdom of the Sanford apology (and in terms that would have gotten a male op-ed writer in serious trouble):

"Perhaps someday one of these VIPs in trouble will figure out that on these occasions it's not a great thing to go public looking like a pathetic dolt -- the kind of man who would induce instant headache and skin crawling in any woman imagining him as a lover."

Rabinowitz would have had Sanford make a straight-forward admission of the affair, without apology, capped with this closer:

"So let's understand this. I plan to straighten my tie, button my jacket .. and go forward to do what I have to do. Life's complicated, ladies and gentlemen, but there's work to be done. I'll have nothing further on this, count on it."

The long, drawn-out, tearful apology didn't score well with Cokie Roberts or Sam Donaldson on ABC's Good Morning America.

"It will sink him," Roberts said about the apology, not the affair.

Donaldson disparaged Sanford for taking questions from media and answering in agonizing detail. "He's a cooked goose," Donaldson said, adding that he gives higher marks to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who made a brief statement and a quick exit in admitting an extramarital affair earlier this month.

Of course, every situation is unique and it's always easy for the "experts" to criticize.

One thing is clear. If Sanford wants to keep his job, he needs to keep his head down and work through the issues and privately work with his wife on saving their marriage. No more apologizing; no more details; no further comment even as journalists work to advance the story. ("Who is the mysterious woman in Argentina? How did they meet? etc.)

It's still might not be enough to overcome his erratic behavior -- the sudden disapearance, the phony story about hiking -- that had to make voters wonder about his suitabiity to govern.

Fortunately, the public has a short attention span. The sudden death of Michel Jackson has blown all other news off the radar screen. Sanford should make use of the respite and keep quiet.

- Jon Harmon

 

Are the American economy's best days behind it? Don't accept the "new normal!"

The severity of the current economic downturn (aka, the "Worst Recession Since the Great Depression") has a lot of doomsayers declaring that things have changed forever and that we might as well get used to it.

ABC News has launched a news segment on coping with hard times, featured relentlessly on both the ABC Evening News and Good Morning America. It's called "The New Normal."  The premise is, you guessed it, lean times are here to stay.

Sounds to me a lot like the "malaise days" of the Jimmy Carter Administration. The stagflation of the late '70s seemed to many to mark the passing of American economic greatness. Then came Ronald Reagan and "Morning in America" and two solid decades of prosperity and double digit annual returns on just about anything you invested in.

So I'm not buying the "new normal." And I hope leaders in businesses large and small reject the notion, too. There will be an upside to the current down draft, mark my words, and those companies putting into place the elements for their recovery plans will far out-perform their competition when things start heating up.

Echoing this sentiment is friend of Force for Good and former Governor of Kansas Bill Graves. Governor Graves now serves as the president and CEO of the American Trucking Association.

"As difficult as our recent economic past has been, I’m one of the optimists who believes we’ll see some encouraging economic developments before year end," Governor Graves wrote to me in a recent email.

"While our situation in 2010 and 2011 won’t be a return to the heady days of 2003-2007, I’m just too much of a believer in the average US citizen’s fondness for the great quality of life that we’ve all come to expect, and therefore expect to see lots of freight being moved which supplies this country's consumer demand."

Commercial trucking activity should be one of the first harbingers of a rebounding economy. Other sectors will have their first green shoots as well. Make sure your company doesn't miss the opportunity that lies ahead for those who can see past the "current normal."

- Jon Harmon

Hope for reform in Iran rests on social media

Repressive official forces in Iran, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei put a stop to wide-spread protests of disputed official results of the country's presidential election. It appears a 10-day cooling off period is being enforced, after which reform-minded protesters may have sufficiently lost momentum to prevent substantial opposition being voiced to the clerical regime.

In the meantime, officials in Iran have shut down Facebook use and cell phone texting transmission, and confiscated cell phones protesters have used to capture and post video of the protests and police brutality in suppressing them.

Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long used social media himself, as noted in my post here in 2007. Ahmadinejad came to power as a populist who at the same time made it clear to the ruling clerics that he was their man. For a time, Ahmadinejad breathed new life into the clerical regime's sagging popularity. But his hardline ways have been rejected by increasing numbers of citizens, particularly women and young people.

For his part, opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi has quite limited credentials as a reformer. A hard-liner himself, Moussavi was included among the four candidates the ruling clerics allowed to be placed on the ballot from 200 initial candidates. But only when he began to modify his rhetoric to express some support for reform did his "green" campaign catch on, with women and students his most vocal supporters.

Photo: AFP

It seems unlikely that the entrenched powers in Iran will allow any real scrutiny of the highly suspect election, The bigger question is whether large numbers of reform-minded citizens will continue to openly push for truly Democratic change in Iran. Hopes rests firmly on the power of social media to connect Iran's citizenry to each other and to supporters around the world. Call them citizen journalists or the Facebook generation -- they are the best hope for lasting change in a repressive nation.

Are we about to witness a historic moment in Iran, similar to the popular unrest in Eastern Europe in 1989 that led to fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Bloc? Or, more likely, is Tehran similar to Tiananmen Square the same year, where student protests captured the world's attention but did little to erode the repressive hold of the Chinese government?

- Jon Harmon

Twitter grows up, just like blogs did way back in 2006

Do you Tweet? Or are you annoyed by the gushing attention paid to faddish Twitter?

Don't be too quick to dismiss Twitter and the legions of Twits as passing silliness. Just like blogging before it, Twitter is quickly morphing from the exceedingly banal to the (sometimes) indispensable.

Twitter poses the question "What are you doing now?" and asks for an extremely brief response to be beamed to your "followers." At first, this prompted Twits to provide frequent updates of their participation in boring activities. Just like the first bloggers who famously (or apocryphally?) posted about what they had eaten for breakfast.

But (some) Twitter use has grown up -- providing eyewitness accounts from the scenes of breaking news stories or allowing a smart business executive to Tweet substantive yet casual updates of true interest to followers. And to spark debate among a virtual community on some topic of interest to them.

Like the Blackberry and the cell phone text message, Twitter is also forcing prolific note writers to get quickly to the point. And for that we can be thankful. Brevity rules.

- Jon Harmon

Own up to your company identity when joining in an on-line conversation

For public relations people looking to stick your toes in the ocean of consumer-generated media: remember that participating in the blogosphere requires full disclosure.

An active chatboard, blog or Twitter discussion centered around your product or company, or at least your industry, might benefit from the perspective of someone knowledgeable. Chances are good you have something meaningful to add to the conversation. But tread lightly, introducing yourself candidly as a spokesperson for your company. Don't get argumentative and certainly don't belittle those who you don't agree with.

In other words, don't follow the example of Raymond Ridder, PR Director for the Golden State Warriors, who anonymously posted pro-management comments on a chatboard that had gone negative on those running the Warriors.

Ridder follows in the disgraced footsteps on Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and the "Wal-Marting Across America" floggers. Being outed as an insider posing as an outsider leads to instant vilification -- as identity transparency is a crucial expectation of ethical behavior in an on-line community.

Ridder threw ethics out the window when he noticed Warriors fan site WarriorWorld.net going starkly negative after a management conference call. So he logged onto the site as "FlunksterDude" and tried to steer things to the positive. Check out this story on CNET to understand why that didn't work.

Ridder is taking full responsibility for his actions. But he doesn't yet understand that he did anything wrong. This well-stated excerpt from fansite SportsRubbish makes clear what was wrong -- and what the implications are for the PR community:

There unfortunately are plenty of P.R. “professionals” who think it is perfectly acceptable to pose as a regular fan to get their message out. Keep this in mind any time you read, well, anything online. If something is too positive or too negative, it quite possibly could either be that company or a rival making that post.

There is nothing wrong with team executives interacting with fans and taking the pulse of fan sentiment. If they do want to post on a team message board like Warriors World, they should just be up front about it, rather then attempting to hide behind anonymity.

- Jon Harmon

 

Too much transparency can be a bad thing

When is too much of a good thing no longer good?

Transparency clearly is a communications virtue. So is reader/user participation. There is great power in providing an audience with clear insights into difficult issues, as well as in encouraging audience participation in finding solutions and in guiding content development. These actions foster audience engagement which greatly improves both acceptance of the message as well as the quality of the message itself as we tap into the collective wisdom of the audience at large.

But that doesn't mean that more transparency is always better.

The Chicago Tribune recently launched an ill-fated project to solicit responses from subscribers to sketches of stories as reporters were still fleshing out story details. The idea was to tap into the power of open-sourcing for additional leads as well as to grow reader appetite for an upcoming story or series.

But soon after the experiment was kicked off, dozens of reporters signed a letter to the Tribune's editor, Gerould Kern, urging him to pull the plug on the idea. They were concerned that teasing stories before all the facts were in might, in fact, recklessly spread ill-founded rumors.

"We stopped this," Kern was quoted in a susequent Tribune story. "To prematurely disseminate information about stories in progress compromises reporting (including) potential legal issues, fairness, accuracy and completeness."

The project also raised the specter of news judgments being made by opinion poll, an abdication of editors' responsibility. "Journalists make decisions about news play. We're not taking a marketing survey ... and saying 'OK, this goes on Page One,'" Kern said.

It's safe to say that few corporate communications functions are likely to tilt so far in favor of transparency to require a corrective reaction. Most companies could continue to benefit from far more openness in their communications. And open-sourcing for idea-generation and best-practice sharing can greatly enhance the power of company intranets. But it is also useful for us advocates of transparency to take note of the danger of going too far, too fast.

- Jon Harmon

Swine flu takes a bite out of pork industry: perception, reality and "efficient markets" myth

The pork industry is desperate for politicians and the media to quit referencing "swine flu." But A-H1N1 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

The World Health Organization, the Food Standards Agency and other authoritative agencies the world over continue to tell the public that this strain of flu is not spread by the consumption of infected pork. But pork sales, and the stock prices of pork sellers such as Smithfield Foods, are down sharply.

It's not hard to see why the public isn't taking any chances with the "other white meat." The media has, of course, clamped onto the storyline of the swine flu outbreak as a deadly menace of potentially Biblical proportions, often invoking the memory of the global flu pandemic of 1918 that killed tens of millions worldwide. Of course, medicine has advanced a bit since then..

(Meanwhile, countries such as Russia and China, have used the scare to enact protectionist trade barriers to North American pork exports. Never let a good crisis go to waste, eh comrade?)

So while the reality is that pork is safe, the widespread perception is that pork is best avoided, at least until the flu scare passes. This is not a trivial distinction. Perception drives consumer behavior.

There are still those on Wall Street (and perhaps your IR department?) who cling to the notion of the "efficient market." Press coverage, good or bad, according to this theory does not affect stock prices because the stock market is super-efficient at sorting through hype and nonsense, driven only by the facts, ma'am. Proponents of the efficient market theory look down their noses on media relations practitioners' quaint fascination with positive story placement and the moderation of negative stories. "It doesn't matter," the old-school IR types sneer, "the market is efficient."

Even if you still believe that Wall Street is all-knowing (an absurdity in post-meltdown 2009, if you ask me), you still have to concede that financial markets must respond to changes in consumer demand. Consumers are bombarded with far more information than they can process so they often make decisions based on superficial impressions and perceptions. Perceptions drive consumer behavior.

So yes, it's incredibly important that a corporation's messages be succinct, clear and memorable. That's true when you are brand-building and it's even more true when you are defending a brand in a time of crisis.

- Jon Harmon