Force For Good Communications

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