Crisis Guru

A Message for Mr. Obama: How About We Try Another Approach . . . Simplification

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:17:00 +0000

The biggest difference between the private sector and the public sector is that government has no sense of the dollar value of time. There is no sense that all the proposed programs—that sound so good inside the beltway and on NBC’s Meet the Press—really make anyone who employs anybody cringe every time.
This seems so simple it may be silly to suggest it, but radically simplify how businesses operate in America, especially smaller business. It could be the greatest single energizer of individual business imaginable. Isn’t that historically where the most new jobs come from in numbers that mean anything—one or two jobs here, and one or two jobs there from millions of small businesses? Probably won’t be hiring any brokers or bankers, but maybe insurance agents, real estate agents, store managers, and people with technical and community college training. Does it matter? We need citizens who need stuff and have the confidence to go out and spend.
We have a very small business. Yet, I have three consultants for every employee: two for taxes (our corporate taxes weigh two pounds and are more than an inch thick), two for our pension plan, one for filing, and one for investment advice. The rules are rightly onerous. It’s a big responsibility but could be simpler. We have an accountant with some regulatory oversight (to make sure we file the nearly three dozen reports required by various jurisdictions every year). We file sales tax returns in several states, this could be consolidated.
Proposing tax credits for new employees won’t come close to meeting the obligations of hiring new people, plus such a business decision creates the added complexity of filing more government reports. If the person I hire is a deadbeat dad (I can’t ask.), the county will, under criminal penalty, require that I compute the amounts owed spouses, withhold these moneys (another report), and submit to the county authorities accompanied by the proper forms for dispersement to the spouse.
If the person I hire turns out to have a phony ID and can’t pass the immigration screening I’m required to do as an employer, there are criminal penalties for that. And more forms to be filed if the hire is successful.
Small business or big business, we all seem to be treated the same. And no government official seems to be able to forecast the consequences of their actions. We feed the growing daily needs of ever more averous bureaucracies. The states and the counties, in turn, layer on their own additional requirements. Every form required by the federal government probably triggers two or three downstream forms from other government entities.
Simplify, Simplify, Simplify. These steps would put immediate resources back to work in company coffers and perhaps even reduce the cost of government.

We need the business giants to place orders with their suppliers early and often. Get out there and sell something.

Toyota on the Right Track?

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:34:00 +0000

The latest Toyota ad, “Our Pledge to You,” is out and does show signs that the company is making progress in understanding what it has to do to be forgiven. But, the approach is still too austere and fails to go far enough to make the customer-focused commitment that’s needed.

If Toyota truly wants to achieve the forgiveness it must have to recover (and also foil the critics, confound the media, convert the public policy makers, and disable the bloviators, bellyachers, and back bench bitchers), its strategy needs to include two powerful ingredients:

1. Stop talking about Toyota and what the company is doing, and begin talking from the customers’ point-of-view, entirely. The former approach sounds like (and is a form of) self-forgiveness and problem minimizing. The approach must emphasize what customers can expect, what customers need to do, what the next steps are, and how customer interaction (as small as it might be) is providing meaningful assistance to the company as it resolves the issues it’s facing.

2. Toyota needs to follow the time tested algorithm for obtaining customer, employee, shareholder, and public forgiveness:

Step #1 Candor: Outward recognition, through promptly and continuously verbalized and written public acknowledgement, that a problem exists; that people or groups of people, the environment, or the public trust are affected; and what specifically is (will) be done to remediate the situation.

Step #2 Apology: Verbalized or written statements of personal regret, remorse, and sorrow, acknowledging personal responsibility for having injured, insulted, failed or wronged another, humbly asking for forgiveness in exchange for more appropriate future behavior and to make amends in return.

Step #3 Explanation (no matter how silly, stupid, or embarrassing the problem-causing errors are): Promptly, briefly, and extensively explain why the problem occurred and the known underlying reasons or behaviors that led to the situation (even if there is only partial information). Keep updating the findings.

Step #4 Affirmation: Talk about what you’ve learned from the situation and how it will influence your future present and future behavior. Unconditionally commit to regularly report additional information until it is all out or until public interest has ended.

Step #5 Declaration: An ongoing public commitment and discussion of specific, positive steps to be taken to conclusively address the issues and resolve the situation.

Step #6 Contrition: The continuing verbalization of regret, empathy, sympathy, even embarrassment. Take appropriate responsibility for having allowed the situation to occur in the first place, whether by omission, commission, accident, or negligence.

Step #7 Consultation: Promptly seek help and counsel from “victims,” government, the community of origin, independent observers, and even from your opponents. Involve directly and request the participation of those most affected to help develop more permanent solutions, more acceptable behaviors, and to design principles and approaches that will preclude similar problems from re-occurring. Seek, insist, and propose more oversight, restrictions, regulations, rules, and legislation.

Step #8 Commitment: Publicly set your goals at zero. Zero errors, zero defects, zero dumb decisions, and zero problems. Publicly promise that, to the best of your ability, situations like this will be prevented in the future. Disclose through Web site announcements and dashboards the diversity and intensity of the efforts.

Step #9 Restitution: Find a way to quickly pay the price. Make or require restitution. Go beyond community and victim expectations, and what would be required under normal circumstances to remediate the problem. Do more, talk productively.

The people from Toyota may indeed say they’re doing all of this, but if you read this algorithm structure carefully, they’re doing very little and skipping the really hard parts (the disclosure and the customer voice). The one thing we know for sure about situations like Toyota’s, the company will do every algorithm element – the way it’s presented here – for this nightmare to begin to end and go away. If the company starts sincerely and consciously doing all of these steps immediately, the tides will turn sooner rather than later. The behavior in the algorithm helps employees and those who rely on Toyota to have many more reasons to rally around the company.

Newspaper ads can be a fine gesture, though they often give the impression that more is being done then is actually accomplished because they’re so general and nonspecific. If you want to talk about accomplishments, do dashboards, including your data on customer attitudes and confidence. Talk is cheap. It is performance and action that matter most.

“No” Is Killing America

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:07:00 +0000

Do we have meaningful health care reform . . . NO.
Do we have substantive and rigorous regulation of banks and financial institutions . . . NO.
Has the credit card industry been brought under control and under strict supervision . . . NO.
Have real estate practices and investments been rigorously investigated, detoxified, and simplified . . . NO.
Has anything been done to tame Wall Street and to make them more responsive to, and stop betting against America . . . NO.
Is there any prospect that the unregulated financial gimmicks that caused catastrophe will be prevented, detected, and prohibited . . . NO.
Have those who profited from betting against America be caught and punished, and their practices abolished and criminalized . . . NO.
Are the millions of unemployed being helped to find work by our government . . . NO (except for unionized government workers).
Has Congress done anything that recognizes how responsible they are for all the disasters we suffered in the last year and a half, including past similar disasters . . . NO.
Should the same people who engineered and profited from the problems they triggered be in charge of fixing things . . . NO.
Can the forces of NO actually help us make progress, solve problems, and have a better life . . . NO.
Is there anyone currently in Washington, D.C. who can make progress in any of these areas . . . NO.
Are the 575 people we elected to run the country doing anything meaningful to move our country forward . . . NO.

My father used to say when in doubt, do something. It’s the only way to find out what comes next that could be better. How can we find someone who can stop the killing and actually help do something?

The Toyota Brand Sinking? C’mon

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:49:00 +0000

Of the relatively few dumb statements published about Toyota’s current recall troubles—one by Maryann Keller quoted in a Bloomberg story, “People aren’t going to buy Toyotas . . . their image is finished . . . ”—is premature, but silly enough to get a reporter to bite. And here’s another statement, by Brenda Wrigley (chair of the Department of Public Relations at Syracuse University’s School of Public Communications) and quoted by the Associated Press on January 27, 2010, “The story just kind of drags on. That’s just deadly for a reputation. It just spirals into a big situation that’s probably going to have long-term financial impact for the company. Quality was their differentiator and now it’s their Achilles heel.” How about some history?

Jerry Delefamina, a brilliant, Long Island advertising maven of the ’80s and ’90s, told ABC News (and many other news outlets in 1982) that Tylenol would disappear as a brand within a year after the mysterious 1982 Chicago-area cyanide poisonings where seven died, there were copycat cases, which caused a massive recall of the product. The capsules were off the market for six weeks.

In 1986, there was second Tylenol tampering cyanide poisoning, this time in Westchester County, New York that caused one death, another massive recall, and the end of Tylenol capsules over the counter for 25 years.

McNeil Laboratories (the division of Johnson and Johnson that makes Tylenol) and J&J’s handling of the two incidents set the global standard for ethical, open, and disclosive crisis response and public communication for industries, government, and commercial organizations around the world.

Toyota’s response is clearly meeting this global standard. The Toyota brand, like Tylenol, is likely to be stronger as a result of such excellent, open, and responsive corporate behavior.

Negative speculation, which the media loves more than the truth, by so called experts, only serves to underestimate the intelligence, competence, and loyalty of satisfied customers.

When Death Is the Crisis

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Operational and Communication Guidelines

One of the most difficult challenges leaders and their communicators face is what to do, what to say, how to behave, and what decisions to make when someone is killed. This problem does arise, all too frequently. Here are some useful guidelines for both operators and communicators:

1. The bigger the market, the less a single death seems to matter unless:

The death is spectacular.
The death reflects a pattern of malpractice, malfeasance, omission, negligence, or cover up.

2. Lukaszewski’s first law of adversity and crisis survival is to recognize that neither the government, the new media or news media, politicians, regulators, critics, nor your enemies have the power to defeat you. Defeat is almost always caused by uninformed or distracted bosses, insider leaks (from management or leadership, or especially from attorneys), well meaning friends and peers, or relatives.

3. Managing the victims and their survivors is 95 percent of your success. Anything less than a full throated communication and operational effort leaves the perpetrator vulnerable. Victim management is a long-term scenario. It can go well beyond settlement or even the end of litigation.

4. If you want to affect public opinion effectively, you have to influence employee opinion effectively, first. External communication strategies only work when there is a base in place that understands, supports, advocates, or remains neutral.

5. There is a pattern for successfully obtaining forgiveness.

6. There is a pattern for making your own problems worse.

7. There is a pattern to the power victims will have over you.

8. Focus on promptly settling these matters as aggressively, compassionately, and positively as possible.

9. Delay, stalling, timidity, and hesitation are the ingredients of failure. Silence is toxic to the perpetrator.

10. Avoid:

Speaking for others
Disparaging or discrediting
All negative words and language
Metaphors, paraphrases, or analogies
Creating new critics or enemies
Using old information to justify or forgive today's actions
Relying on corporate or legal assumptions rather than the realities victims and their survivors/families believe they are actually facing.
Taking any of this personally (stay at altitude)
Testosterosis
Whining

11. Be compassionate, extremely empathetic, open, responsive, transparent, truthful, candid, and engaging. Get to a place where you could consider apologizing.

12. Answer all the questions. For every question you skip, someone makes up an answer that you are going to wind up eating and owning.

Obama 2009 Performance Review: Stuck in the Muck

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:30:00 +0000

If we examine President Obama’s performance in terms of the five most common reasons why CEOs get fired, the analysis is quite revealing.

Reason #1: Failure to deliver what was promised upon hiring

Where do we begin? The economy remains a mess. Unemployment keeps increasing. There is mistake after mistake, with no real sense of urgency about solving any particular problem. All Obama does is tell us how tough it is and how much we will have to suffer. Bad ideas continue, like closing Guantanamo, and trying terrorists in the U.S. court system. For killing thousands of Americans, terrorists get American citizenship.

Reason #2: Over optimism

Homeland Security’s Chief Officer, Napolitano, said it best. After a terrorist successfully defeated security measures, boarded a U.S. aircraft in Amsterdam, but (through his own stupidity) failed to detonate the bomb strapped to his body and was apprehended by a passenger, Napolitano’s comment was, “The system worked!” And, within hours, Americans get subjected to further humiliation at airports.

Meanwhile, during the most extraordinary security lapse since 9/11/2001, the President remains on vacation while the news media drives the country into turmoil. Any governor or mayor knows that if these serious events happen (on Christmas Day no less), they better get back to their desks and lead the investigations.

Obama hardly ever uses the word “terrorist” in his speeches. Is he afraid?

Misfiring, lost opportunity, and premature ejaculation are the strategies of this administration.

Reason #3: People problems

The second responsibility of any chief executive is to put in place the people who can make the leader’s vision happen. There is, apparently, only one visionary in this administration, Hillary Clinton. Everyone else seems to be a problem, whether it's his spokespeople, his chief advisers (a bunch of Chicago politicians), or his own unenthusiastic, visionless style. We have no national team with national experience. We have enormous inexperience and a couple rogues, like the U.S. Attorney General whose decision to do terrorist show trials near Ground Zero will only accelerate terrorist attack attempts. These trials should be done in The Hague or some remote village in Siberia.

Reason #4: AWOL

This president has visited more countries than any first-year president ever has. Why? He has spent most of this time sucking up to foreigners instead of stating carefully fashioned, clearly understandable United States policy. Then, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, an award he should have refused as being unqualified. In pursuit of mindless visibility, the Nobel committee made the award and, in the process, diminished its importance. Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech required that he admit to the world that he had no real accomplishments or credentials to justify the award, except that it's really tough running two wars at the same time.

This kind of travel and vacuous activity is usually reserved for the second term when a president has very little to do and is out of ideas. Obama has started early on his second term.

Reason #5: Stuck in the muck

What has been accomplished for the average American this year? Banks, insurance companies, Wall Street, the credit card industry, and real estate all have been bailed out or protected by the American taxpayer. Banks, while refusing to loan money to help restart the economy, hoarded plenty of cash to pay enormous bonuses to the very perpetrators who have destroyed the lives of millions of Americans. The insurance industry, led by AIG, will pay the largest bonuses in history after perpetrating unspeakable damage on America’s economy for which we have given them hundreds of billions. The credit card industry, completely unbridled and arrogant, continues to gouge Americans without punishment, without regulation, and without shame (thanks, of course, mostly to U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd D-CT). The real estate industry, led by the same perpetrators of the last collapse, have found new ways to package mortgages, perpetuate credit default swaps, and other predatory financial practices. And then there is Wall Street, the theme park of American greed. They never stop, they always take, and they always get away with it. America is the laughing stock of Wall Street. (This, of course, mostly engineered by America’s business schools who look down on the American working person and only look up to the person who makes the most money and acts like the biggest bully.)

This president has done nothing to reassure the American public that something has been done or will be done to get this quintumverate of economic disaster and greed under control.

Even healthcare reform will turn out to be a financial bonanza for every key economic player, especially the insurance industry, courtesy of U.S. Senator “Goofy” Lieberman, except, of course, American taxpayers and American patients. The quintumverate wins again.

Summary Assessment

Presidents get about 210 days to get their vision launched, their dreams in wide circulation, and to marshal their forces to achieve what they set out to accomplish. Then the postmortems begin, coupled with midterm elections. Following the midterms, comes to 24-month effort at reelection. This president has effectively missed three crucial milestones to his future success: the failure to state a vision this country could strive for (“change” is a jingle, not a vision); failure to assemble a credible, powerful, highly accomplished national team; and failure to execute a credible, productive sense of urgency or crisis management so necessary to mobilize public attitudes and public support. No American president in history, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, has been presented with such a monumental series of opportunities for great, even immortal leadership.

His legacy, thus far, has been to resuscitate a moribund Republican Party, help us all forget just how bad a president George W. Bush was, and to wonder if anyone actually knows or understands the state of our Union.

Washington D.C., to quote futurist John Naisbitt, “is the theme park of American democracy.” But, as it stands at the end of 2009, most of the rides are broken or in very bad repair, and the guy we hired to fix them (who promised change) has yet to show up for work. He’s out there stuck in the muck.

Any other CEO with this track record would be looking for work, after having received a tremendous severance package.

Maybe it’s not too early to ask . . . “What would Hillary, or Sarah, or somebody else do?”

Where’s the Dream?

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:25:00 +0000

Our nation needs a dream. Whatever your political persuasion or philosophical bent, most of us across all strata of society get energized by the dreams of those who lead us. Right now there is a sensational vacuum.

One of the reasons we may be stumbling, fumbling, mumbling, and bumbling as we enter 2010 is that “Change” is not a dream, and deflecting major decision making to outside groups — the UN or Congress — is definitely not a dream.

What is our next destination as a nation? Kennedy used space; Johnson had the Great Society; Clinton had the end of big government as we knew it; Reagan had the end of the Soviet Union.

America is truly the place on the planet where personal dreams can come true, but we need more and bigger goals or aspirations to strive for and take pride in . . . or to hate and target. Dreams show us the way. Dreams help us all set timelines, deadlines, and expectations.

Big dreams help define the next phase of our destiny. The bigger the dream, the greater the impact.

We are waiting.

Have great holidays and keep asking, “Where’s the dream?”

What’s Next for Tiger Woods

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:39:00 +0000

I know you’re tired of hearing this stuff, but I couldn’t resist. Tiger and his troubles fit an unmistakable pattern.

His life will increasing resemble being at war—long periods of boring quiet and inattention punctuated by explosive, disclosive, sometimes disturbing events. What do we know for sure?

He'll be back bigger than ever, if he plays the way he has. We love to celebrify criminals and fallen celebrities who strive to rehabilitate and return. (Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy is advertising Gold on national television.)
A whole new Tiger’s Failures industry has been born, “What did Tiger really do?” “What did Elin use the golf club for?” “Tiger’s girls” “Who’s Tiger putting now?” This will “dog” him for the rest of his professional life. He won’t make a dime from it. Many, many show business, sports, political, and business leaders (especially those who have failed gigantically or miserably) become highly visible and famous due to the magnitude of their mistakes or misfortunes. We love the recovering. They don’t even have to be repentant.
The worst has yet to be disclosed.

What Would Tiger’s Dad Have Done?

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:14:00 +0000

Perhaps the way to approach the state of Tiger Wood’s affairs is to ask the question, “What would his dad, the architect of his life, do?” How would Tiger’s father analyze what Tiger has done thus far? Using Tiger Woods’ December 2, 2009 statement (on http://www.tigerwoods.com/), let’s walk through his “comments on current events” through the eyes of someone who really cared about him.

1. “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart.”

Comment: What are the transgressions? The first rule of apology is that the admission must contain meaningful specificity.

2. “I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.”

Comment: What are those values, Tiger? Benjamin Franklin had 13 values, ranging from frugality to humility. How do we know what your values really are without specifying which ones you transgressed?

3. “I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect.”

Comment: What are those faults, Tiger? What are the imperfections to which you refer?

Note: We’re only three sentences into Mr. Woods’ comments and already there are a dozen questions.

4. “I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family.”

Comment: The problem is that you’ve opened the doors by talking about these things. If you really wanted to be helpful, you would outline what one or two of those personal failings happen to be.

5. “Those feelings should be shared by us alone.”

Comment: Why? You’re a brand. Brands are owned by those who trust, use, and benefit from them. It is the brand owners who determine what is private and what isn’t.

6. “Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means.”

Comment: You’ve lived in a highly positive cocoon for much of your life. This tends to make you a virgin when it comes to operating in a real world situation. There is nothing more fascinating to the news media than deflowering someone who lives by the media, but who feels they shouldn’t have to die by similar fashion. Welcome to the real world.

7. “For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives.”

Comment: From the perspective of most of us, you live in the protective environment of what appears to be a wonderful home, a gated community and private property, where you’re pretty insulated from “hounding” by anyone. This is classic arrogant, frat boy whining.

8. “The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious.”

Comment: Now you tell us. How do we know? We need more information, because of how much you’ve already not told us.

9. “Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.”

Comment: Yes, Tiger, it’s only her forgiveness that matters. And it sounds as though you’ve got a ways to go to achieve that.

10. “But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”

Comment: There is no saint like a reformed sinner. Mr. Woods has, apparently, sinned mightily and now asks that it remain covered up until he can somehow manage its affects.

11. “I realize there are some who don't share my view on that.”

Comment: Like most of us, Tiger, when you do stupid things you get dumb visibility.

12. “But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one's own family.”

Comment: There’s that comment about virtue again. What are the virtues we’re talking about? The virtue must mean, “Leave me alone when I want to be left alone.”

13. “Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions.”

Comment: When you’re a public person and, more importantly, a brand, every aspect of your existence is open to explanation, debate, and questioning.

14. “Whatever regrets I have about letting my family down have been shared with and felt by us alone.”

Comment: There’s a book in there somewhere, by someone.

15. “I have given this a lot of reflection and thought and I believe that there is a point at which I must stick to that principle even though it's difficult.”

Comment: What is that principle? How has sticking to that principle helped you so far?

16. “I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves.”

Comment: Again, Tiger, what does this mean, specifically? What behaviors will you change? What about your virtues and values needs to be repaired? What are the lessons you’ve learned that you will apply in this circumstance? In the forgiveness game, you need to acknowledge, specifically, what the faults and errors were.

17. “For all of those who have supported me over the years, I offer my profound apology.”

Comment: What about the rest of us? Those of us who didn’t get to come to the cocktail parties or couldn’t afford to be in the galleries when you were playing, but who admire you just as much? What’s the purpose of limiting your apology to those who know you? When you’re a brand, you need to apologize to the entire universe that your brand affects.

The formula for Tiger Woods, which will still work, is a profound, humble, positive, open, sincere, and conditionless public apology by him, in person, along with an explanation for the questions he’s already raised.

Most public sinners wind up on 60 Minutes talking to Mr. Kroft, the show’s angel of righteousness (prophylactic humiliation).

Maybe this time, instead of the usual cast of 60 Minutes, they should get Frank Deford, who actually knows something about sports and celebrities to conduct the interview. We all look forward to it and to the end of Tiger’s troubles.

Tiger’s Troubles

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:09:00 +0000

He Can Putt 50 Yards But Stumbles, Fumbles, Mumbles, and Bumbles a Simple Direct Apology

What should Tiger Woods really have done?

Within the first 30 to 45 minutes of the incident occurring, he should have given the police a statement and had the police give it out to the public:

"About an hour ago, following an intense argument about a family matter, and upset, I angrily drove my SUV out of my driveway, lost control of the vehicle—apparently hitting a fire hydrant, perhaps a couple of parked cars, and ultimately a tree across the street from my driveway. The incident happened pretty fast, and I got a little banged up. Within seconds of the crash, my wife, Elin, was outside of my SUV breaking a window to help get me out of the vehicle.

This is a silly, needless, three-minute incident, all my fault, which will cause my family and those who know me some brief anguish and public exposure. For that I am profoundly sorry.

I will do whatever the police instruct and humbly ask the forgiveness of my family and neighbors for the disruption I’ve caused in their lives this evening."

Such an initial statement would create four things that, in hindsight, Mr. Woods seems to think he is owed:

Some semblance of privacy
Being able to avoid the embarrassing speculation of others and moderate media frenzy that occurred
The ability to control his personal circumstances
His integrity and brand value largely intact

There has yet to be a true apology from Mr. Woods and, indeed, there may never be one revealed publicly.

The most constructive structure for apology I’ve seen is in The Five Languages of Apology: How to Experience Healing in All Your Relationships, a book by Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas. Here, with some paraphrasing and modification based on my experiences, are the ingredients of the perfect apology:

Regret (acknowledgment): A verbal acknowledgement by the perpetrator that their wrongful behavior caused unnecessary pain, suffering, and hurt that identifies, specifically, what action or behavior is responsible for the pain.
Accepting Responsibility (declaration): An unconditional declarative statement by the perpetrator recognizing their wrongful behavior and acknowledging that there is no excuse for the behavior.
Restitution (penance): An offer of help or assistance to victims, by the perpetrator; action beyond the words “I’m sorry”; and conduct that assumes the responsibility to make the situation right.
Repentance (humility): Language by the perpetrator acknowledging that this behavior caused pain and suffering for which he/she is genuinely sorry; language by the perpetrator recognizing that serious, unnecessary harm and emotional damage was caused.
Direct Forgiveness Request: “I was wrong, I hurt you, and I ask you to forgive me.”

Do apologies matter? Twenty-nine states seem to think so. These states have enacted legislation exempting voluntary expressions of regret and apology at traffic accidents from being considered by juries when setting auto liability damages. Legislation is pending in Congress to mitigate the impact of liability on malpractice insurance claims against doctors and medical personnel who apologize immediately, or very quickly, and sincerely.

The hard part of apologizing is the admission of having done something hurtful, damaging, or wrong and requesting forgiveness. In practice, skip even one step and you fail to convince anyone of your sincerity or integrity.

My immediate advice to Mr. Woods:

Get better legal counsel; get better communications counsel (they are very different disciplines); then listen up.
Brands (which is what you have intended to be) have no rights to privacy. There are owned by the publics who purchase and trust them.
Abject, humble, meaningful, and sincere words of apology—personally delivered—generate enormous public sympathy. The single most powerful benefit of this behavior is that the media hate it and generally won’t cover it, for long.

Remember the rules for forgiveness:

Silence is toxic.
Candor builds trust.
Openness calms the masses.
Apology is the atomic energy of empathy for your believers, followers, and wannabes; disables the media; and disempowers attorneys.
Public repentance is required. Some extraordinary act of generosity affecting a wide variety of people and places is called for, something that preferably really hurts.

In my next blog post, I’ll take Mr. Wood’s most recent statement and specifically, sentence by sentence, describe what he should have done.

If you’re interested in reading more about apology, visit Who's Sorry Now: The Growing Art of the Apology.

Terrorist Trials in New York, a Tragic Decision

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:53:00 +0000

The decision by US Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, cheered on by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and members of the media to stage terrorist trials in New York City reflects the present culture of leadership training our society fosters in its government leaders, business leaders, even legal and religious leadership. They are taught to overwhelm, defeat, and vanquish. Winning is never enough. True leaders have to hold the defeated up for public ridicule, prophylactic humiliation, then strut their heads around on a stick. How can this be seen as any kind of propaganda victory for America?

In the process, while a few public officials, aggressive prosecutors, plaintiff attorneys and a 24/7 bloviator-driven media that, with unfairness and imbalance, plus the all bull, all bias boys and girls, enjoy focusing on all the negativity about America the spectacle will generate . . . the rest of us will be held hostage to the needless circus while the terrorists as civilian criminals have a global platform to hate us and spit on us for months, maybe years.

We have very effective military tribunals to try war criminals. These tribunals take place in less significant locations under circumstances that befit the crimes. Who is clamoring for show trials and, in the process, baiting and needlessly focusing the destructive energies of thousands, perhaps millions of militant America haters? These trials will be seen for what they are, a victory of testosterosis over justice.

What Are the Attributes of the Ethical Executive?

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:58:00 +0000

For some time now, I’ve been conducting my own completely unscientific “poll” of senior advisors, asking them, from their experience, to provide up to 10 attributes of executives with integrity. The question I asked was, “What are the characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes of the ethical executive?” I asked each individual for 10 examples. Here’s the list from a superstar mid-30s female:

Honesty
Integrity
Fairness
Confidence
Vision
Ability to view issues through multiple lenses
Ability to flex communication styles for critical conversations
Ability to take feedback
Appreciation/gratitude
Responsiveness

Then there’s this from a late 40s top-notch consultant:

Truthful
Courageous
Honest
Respectful
Compassionate
Just
Humble
Wise
Responsible
Reliable

Here’s the list from a Ph.D. college professor:

Honesty
Integrity
Accuracy
Transparency
Accountability
Fair
Responsible
Loyalty
Truthful
Professional

And, how about this from a late 50s senior agency counselor:

Honesty
Moral understanding and conviction
Uncompromising (re: established standards)
Versed in acceptable social norms
Fair
Unwilling to accept double standards
Willing to share information (transparent)
Leads by example
Believable
Mature value structure
Teacher/ethical evangelist

So far, honesty and truthfulness appear on three out of the four lists. Ultimately, I think I’d like to begin creating a roster of executives who meet a great proportion of these attributes, because we only tend to hear about those who succeed or fail in spectacular ways.

My experience is that there are very few lessons to learn from those who fail. The models we need are those who have consistently demonstrated the qualities of ethical behavior, integrity, and credibility as defined by those around them.

What’s your list? Who are your candidates?

Send these to me and I’ll publish them. We’ll create a matrix of ethical executive expectations, and then, the next step will be to ask for nominations of individuals who manage and lead in the space called “integrity.”

The Growing Threat to Trial Lawyers: Apology

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:36:00 +0000

An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal recently highlights one of the most interesting phenomena occurring in the legal world. It’s the phenomenal power of apology to avoid litigation, manage legal crises, and be the most powerful crisis management tool.

The article’s title sums it up, “Hospitals Own Up to Errors, Some Find That Confronting Mistakes Reduces Litigation and Future Mishaps.”

Hospitals, especially, and other health care facilities are learning that owning up to their medical mistakes or the perception of poor performance promptly can significantly reduce litigation and, at the same time, prevent future similar mishaps, or perceptions.

The “I’m Sorry” movement in America is long, strong, and growing. Just visit http://www.sorryworks.net/, a Web site devoted to prompt, aggressive, and candid disclosure of medical mistakes and errors. In the Journal article, Dr. Timothy McDonald, a pediatric anesthesiologist and chief safety officer at the University of Illinois Medical Center said: “Since the hospital undertook much more aggressive patient/staff communication, and in 2006, established a policy of fully disclosing medical errors, apologizing when they occurred, and swiftly offering a financial settlement, law suits against the Center are down 40 percent compared to the period between 1999 and 2004.” “Yet,” he said, “the number of procedures increased 23 percent.”

Dr. McDonald said, “While we can’t say for certain that the disclosure program was responsible for the decreases, we can certainly say that it has not caused an increase in law suits or payouts.” I’ve witnessed similar experiences in my health care practice all across America.

The lesson is that the faster we sincerely apologize for mistakes of any kind, while there may need to be claims filed and settlements made, the threat of aggressive, costly, time consuming litigation is significantly reduced or goes away very rapidly.

Many in the legal profession remain against aggressive apologizing, claiming that it will increase lawsuits and payouts. But years of evidence is accumulating that prompt acknowledgement coupled with clear apologies and sensible offers of settlement can eliminate the litigation phase of legal interaction between victim and perpetrator, in favor of an attitude of settlement.

Yes, apologies are legal admissions and they come with a price, but they also have an extraordinary benefit — significantly limiting or eliminating litigation.

My advice to attorneys? Begin learning how to aggressively, constructively, and promptly settle matters rather than rattle the saber, slap victims around, or take an aggressive “blame the victim” posture. Increasingly, my litigation practice focuses on prompt settlements (even within 24 hours) and helping clients manage the victim dimension over the long term.

In America today, fewer than 1 in 100 civil or criminal cases filed ever get to trial. Even when litigation is threatened, the reality is that the vast majority of cases are going to be settled, mediated, negotiated, dismissed, or dropped.

In my experience in these matters for nearly 30 years, the smallest check the perpetrator is ever going to write is the check that is written today. Thirty-three states have passed laws preventing juries from considering voluntary apologies at car accident scenes in awarding damages. Twenty-one states have passed laws providing medical workers with similar protection should their case get to trial.

Will the pushback from attorneys continue? Yes it will. As one general counsel told me recently, “We’re not the empathy department of this company.” Watch for my blog on lawyer empathy coming very soon.

The future for litigation is clear and the trend is down. It all begins with those two little words: “I’m sorry . . . and we’ll make it right.” Attention attorneys: Start practicing these two little words today.

If you’re interested in starting your empathy lessons early, send me an E-mail at jel@e911.com requesting: Empathy Lesson #1, Managing the Victim Dimension.

For Crying Out Loud

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:31:00 +0000

When it comes to errors, goofiness, and the insensitivity of top managers, there must be a part of the business school campus that is intentionally avoided—the school of sensible answers and actions.

Case and point: A health care client recently discovered the presence of a mold in one of its buildings, a species that commonly occurs during construction. In another part of the same building, there have been suspicious deaths, although all of the patients involved were already extremely ill. The patients that expired were cared for by two different physicians, both of whom have indicated that the mold may be to blame.

The crucial issue for management seemed to be, rather than dealing with the mold issue directly, was to spend some time (several hours) discussing and debating what their disclosure obligations were. Here are the questions under discussion:

How much of this do we have to disclose and to whom?
When do we have to disclose it?
What should be disclosed first and what can wait?
If new facts arise, when do we disclose this newly found information?
Are we responsible for balanced disclosure?
What are the limits of disclosure we will tolerate before we close this door?
Once we start this process, how long do we have to talk about it and keep providing additional information?
Won’t too much disclosure discourage and frighten patients and their relatives unnecessarily?
Who should make the disclosures? Should this individual be an attorney?
What do we not have to tell anyone?
Is it possible that some of the information comes under HIPAA regulations and therefore must be kept confidential?
How much of this disclosure is a business decision and how much is a moral decision?
Should businesses, even health care organizations, be making moral decisions?

The disclosure dilemma occurs frequently in business life. And the habit of over analyzing seemingly simple situations by management is also too common.

What’s your opinion? What should the rules of disclosure be and under what circumstances?

CEO Sissy Factor

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:36:00 +0000

The Trouble Your Business School Buddies and Networks Can Get You Into

Recently, I was having dinner with the leadership of a large industrial company and the dinner table discussion turned to crises, reputation, and other kinds of problems I come across in my work. The CEO, someone I just met, asked a really interesting question. “What common leadership factors or threads do you find that might cause the crises management failures you wind up handling?”

While all crises have unique patterns, this is a Chief Executive Officer asking, and his question is really about people like himself. Here’s what I told him and his assembled managers:

There are three common behaviors among top leaders, it seems to me, that either cause, complicate, or contribute to management failures and make problems or crises worse.

1. Predecessor Paralysis

The CEO defers taking action, primarily because it will unduly embarrass or otherwise reverse or repudiate something a key predecessor has accomplished or put in motion. The thinking is, apparently, that the CEO “wouldn’t want to make their predecessors look silly.”

2. The Staff Straightjacket

The senior staff can’t agree on what an appropriate plan of action might be. They seem torn between neither wanting to offend key players or key peers, nor wanting to put themselves in any particular danger. You’ll hear the refrain, “You’ll make us all look bad, probably for no reason.”

3. The Peer or Pal Sissy Factor

This is when a buddy, peer, or pal calls and says, “Don’t give in to those buggers, you’ll look silly and foolish, and you’ll make it much, much harder for the rest of us. Besides, if you’re wrong about this, you’ll make us all look bad and set a precedent we’ll all have to live up to or live down.”

Bonus: The Jerk Factor

Some years ago, I had a client who pled guilty to hundreds of felonies. I worked very closely with the lawyers and corporate monitors to help this company resolve its issues, and to prepare for their new life and the impact of the guilty plea. We briefed managers on the company’s guilty plea the previous afternoon in Boston, by reading and then explaining the plea agreement.

Even after reading and hearing the plea agreement read out loud, the first question from the audience was for “the real story of what happened.” So I spent a little bit of time talking about the importance of understanding that the plea agreement is the story and the new tough rules, regulations, and sanctions under which the company would be operating for a while. At which point, the new president of the company (who really didn’t like me anyway) stood up and remarked, for all to hear, “Jim, when you are talking, it seems a bit like Sunday school around here.”

I responded by saying, “Bill, if my company just pled guilty to nearly three hundred felonies, I would think a little Sunday school is in order.” He didn’t laugh, although almost everyone else did. He was gone in four months, and I still occasionally consultant with the company after all of these many years.

Radical But Necessary: A New Way Forward

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:39:00 +0000

The 13 Commandments of Economic Change in America

Ever notice the formula for moving ahead in America? Catastrophe + democracy = progress.

It takes catastrophe to force democracy forward: Black Friday; Pearl Harbor; 9/11; Hurricane Katrina; and the market crash of October 15, 2008, so many were and remain hurt so desperately by so few.

It’s far more than a crisis management or crisis communication problem. The incompetence, ignorance, and political paralysis of government, combined with the implacable gall of America’s Greed Team—real estate, banking, Wall Street, insurance, and the commercial credit industry—has created a fragile but powerful epiphanal moment when real change in America’s economic structure and destiny is possible.

We have a brief chance to recalibrate and reset crucial economic processes that will help us deter, detect, and prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. How will we capture this moment? I believe that what will catalyze the opportunity for change is America’s growing revulsion toward Wall Street and the major economic and financial engines upon which we have relied for the last couple hundred years, and who financially robbed, raped, kicked, and stabbed so many, so easily, for so long.

Since an outbreak of business and leadership integrity is highly unlikely, and President Obama’s amorphous and nebulous quest for “change we can believe in” notwithstanding, Americans now realize that those in charge of our economic institutions (even the “new” people) are the same folks who brought us this catastrophic mess in the first place, and they are simply incapable of getting us out. We need a new strategy, a new roadmap. In the coming days, I’ll be making 13 demands for change that radically depart from the failed old formulas and arrogant greed perpetrators of yesterday and today. Here’s a sample:

Tie all investment transactions, of every kind, to real dollars (or currencies) and common sense.
Prohibit and eradicate all transactions that fictionally expand (leverage) the value of any underlying investment, including speculations, indexing, and derivatives.
Significantly escalate the regulations, oversight, controls, and restrictions on all transactions where any third party is investing, managing, hedging, or otherwise manipulating the financial resources of another party or parties.
Require extreme transparency for all transactions and related activities.
Completely revise how businesses are established and authorized in law to put greed second (or lower), and the community and protection of citizen wealth first.
Establish state-based offices to oversee and regulate Tax Subsidized Organizations (TSOs), currently known as Not-for Profits.
Prohibit transactions that bet on America’s failure or loss of value, including bankruptcies and short selling.

We need to break the cycle where one generation of perpetrators remains in place to teach and coach the next generation to conduct ever more sophisticated scams, deceptions, and frauds with greater frequency. This is truly a moment for innovative thinking and the breaking of old, corrupt models. Thus far, it appears very little change will occur. America’s Greed Team is already well on its way to recovery, at the expense of everyone else. All of which means that the next catastrophe will happen sooner rather than later.

I hope you’ll join the conversation and help make some demands or your own.

Boycotts . . . When Are They Real Crisis Management Threats?

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Every week I review various boycott threat E-mails and comments, helping clients decide whether to take these issues seriously or not. Whenever a boycott is threatened, I always ask six diagnostic questions:

Are customers mentioning it as they come-in or cancel their orders, reservations, appointments, or activities?
Is this the subject of conversation among franchisees, related businesses, allies, partners, or employees and their families?
Is there chatter, at any level, about it on the Web, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, or in chat rooms?
Have the bloviators, bellyachers, back bench complainers, or cable news fabricators been mentioning it more frequently?
Has there been an unexplained blip, positive or negative, in sales, reservations, orders, appointments, or collaboration requests?
Does it have or can it gain traction on college campuses? Is there some indication of independent sources of energy and focus, such as labor unions, religious organizations, or national activist organizations (e.g., ACORN and SAFE)?

If even one of these situations is happening, I would take the circumstance more seriously and begin to plan a response. Until one of these five questions gets a “yes,” the odds are that the boycott is just puff.

A little about boycotts:

They rarely work unless the issue is so inflammatory or so obviously dangerous that a substantial number of people will alter their personal lives to participate.
Very few people, anywhere in the world, get up in the morning and decide what they’re not going to do today.
Truly successful boycotts are rare, but one current example is bottled water. Another less current example is activism against sweatshops and labor abuse. Among the current activist movements are several against major food producing companies, like McDonald's and Subway, on the issue of worker slavery, obscenely low wages, and abuse of farm workers.
For boycotts to be successful, proponents need: (1) a substantive, overwhelmingly compelling issue; (2) a substantially sympathetic audience; (3) younger people or active constituencies for such causes as unions or religion, or some attraction on the college campus circuit; and most importantly, (4) there must be a target organization or industry that deserves to be singled out for punishment. People have to be angry, frightened, or vengeful.
The most recent successful boycotts have been spontaneous and self-imposed, health focused, and usually against the foods we eat such as lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peanut butter, asparagus, and ground beef - all due to fear of bacterial contamination.
Most boycott attempts appear to be random political or highly emotional maneuvers, rarely well orchestrated, and therefore far less likely to succeed.

David Letterman's Crisis Management Failure

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:37:00 +0000

David Letterman, second-rate comedian, second-rate jokes, second-rate apologist, a man with an obvious integrity deficit.

Letterman’s silly, stupid, phony, non-apology for trashing the reputation of a 14-year-old girl is about what we would expect from this tired, old, non-talent. Except for the fact that he was sitting down, his four minutes of self-forgiving, excuse filled chitchat, followed by 30 seconds of his, less than serious, so-called apology, was really another old stand up routine, and the audience laughed and clapped. Some apology.

David, here is what an apology is:

The most constructive structure for apology I’ve seen is in The Five Languages of Apology, a book by Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas. Here, with some paraphrasing and modification based on my experiences, are the ingredients of the perfect apology.

Regret (acknowledgment) - A verbal acknowledgement by the perpetrator that their wrongful behavior caused unnecessary pain, suffering, and hurt that identifies, specifically, what action or behavior is responsible for the pain.
Accepting Responsibility (declaration) - An unconditional declarative statement of admission by the perpetrator recognizing their wrongful behavior and acknowledging that there is no excuse for the behavior.
Restitution (penance) - An offer of help or assistance to victims, by the perpetrator; action beyond the words “I’m sorry”; and conduct that truly assumes the responsibility to make the situation right.
Repentance (humility) - Language by the perpetrator acknowledging that this behavior needlessly caused pain and suffering for which he/she is genuinely sorry; language by the perpetrator recognizing that serious, unnecessary harm and emotional damage was caused.
Direct Forgiveness Request - “I was wrong, I hurt you, and I ask you to forgive me.”

The most difficult and challenging aspects of apologizing are the abject and humble admission of having done something hurtful, damaging, or wrong (which he admits he carefully planned) and to request forgiveness (which he carefully avoided). Skip even one step and you fail. Gloss over and trivialize any step and you reveal yourself for who you really are . . . someone unworthy of respect or attention.

Memo to CBS: Suspend him for a month, then probation for a year. If he does it again, kick his butt out the door and hire someone honorable, who is truly funny and the public can respect.

Let’s Keep Gitmo Going

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:37:00 +0000

Actually, if you think about it, Gitmo is being underutilized. It’s true that all of those dangerous terrorist types are being held there for the time being and the prison itself has become a political football, but the fact is that Guantanamo is a state-of-the-art facility and we have additional uses for it. There are others who need to be warehoused there.

Let’s use Gitmo as a place to put spammers, hackers, and bad bankers. Bernie Madoff and all of his playmates who defrauded us could be put there. It could become a special prison for those who cause mass misery, fear, or destruction.

Who knows, perhaps Cuba and the U.S. could work out a cooperative arrangement to turn the prison into a famous tourist destination. Marriott could put up a Courtyard or Residence Inn and the U.S. Postal Service could install a special letter cancelling facility. Maybe an adroit entrepreneur could build a casino there to help attract traffic and offset some of the costs of the prison.

We need Gitmo. It ought to stay an active facility for these special kinds of trouble makers and societal miscreants.

Nominate your favorite candidate to occupy the new Gitmo.

Crisis Management Questions: Working With Attorneys (Part 2)

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:56:00 +0000

Some things to think about:

Only one in every 100 cases (civil or criminal) ever gets to trial. That means the odds are very high that a case will be settled, arbitrated, or dropped. Failure to communicate until the attorneys discover that the case is not going to trial can cause serious customer, employee, victim, and senior management problems.
In the new world of the citizen journalist, which virtually nowadays includes employees, friends, and self-appointed bloviators and commentators of afflicted companies and organizations, someone is always willing to tell your story when you hesitate to tell it yourself.
Techniques such as crisis Web sites can be very effective in managing much of this extraneous information and activity, ultimately mitigating and often scripting outside chatter.
If there’s a question, take it to the boss. Lawyers are staff advisors just like communicators. The ultimate decision is made by the boss. If the boss allows the attorneys to turn you down, then move on to other serious issues. Make your case to the boss sensibly, based on what you know is going to happen and what you know needs to be done. Once the boss makes the decision, you need to move ahead on that decision until the next opportunity to challenge it or amend it arises. Avoid taking these decisions personally. Be professional.
A trend in legal practice, occurring for some time, involves the addition of lawyers who were formerly communicators to legal teams to preserve the privilege against the vulnerabilities communications can create for litigation. However, from what I’ve seen thus far, there are two problems. First, one is either a lawyer or a communicator. It’s impossible to be both at the same time. Second, I have yet to meet a lawyer-communicator who really worked for the client as much as they worked as a communicator seeking acceptance from fellow attorneys. The vast majority of communications work is not protectable anyway. Having a lawyer-communicator on the legal team involved in non-protectable activities, threatens the privilege for other legal matters, concepts, or ideas that could be protected. I think plaintiffs attorneys, and prosecutors, know this, too.
Lawyers need retraining in external communication skills because they learn a combative vocabulary and verbal style that flows through into all their communications. The real benefit of sensitive, compassionate, positive thinking communication inside and outside is often lost through imposing a “legalistic” style. Generally, a very different vocabulary and strategy is required for public communication. The aggressive, adversarial, negative approaches used in courtrooms create the exact opposite impressions in the Court of Public Opinion. Frankly, I don’t believe the combative and negative approaches work in the courtroom either, but that’s an argument for another day.

There are specific instructions I give clients about working with attorneys. It is currently in revision, but look here for news of this interesting document once it’s ready for distribution.

If you need this document sooner rather than later, contact me directly at jel@e911.com.

One of America’s Top 10 Crisis Management Problems

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:23:00 +0000

American-based Terrorist Training Camps: U.S. Prisons

The Bronx synagogue/Stewart airbase attackers, whose operation was foiled in its execution, are Americans who have gone through the U.S. prison system.

America currently houses two million men and women in prisons across the land. This is an average of 50,000 prisoners per state. Judging by what we know of the terrorist “cell” broken up in the last couple days in New York, three things become quite apparent (based on the histories of those captured). They are products of the American prison system. This system produces three things:

Converts to Islam (the fastest growing religion in America and in American prisons)
Hatred of America
Criminals with more criminal experience

By the end of this year, 900,000 prisoners will be released back into American society to be replaced by an equivalent or larger number going in for training, indoctrination, and heightened criminal motivation.

Who’s talking about this issue? Shouldn’t someone be talking about this issue?

Crisis Questions: Working With Attorneys (Part 1)

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Among the most frequent questions I get concern crisis management and legal situations that require working with attorneys. Here’s one example:

What is the best way to handle a crisis when you’re involved in impending litigation? That is, you’re not allowed to speak to the press and they’re writing negative articles about your company, because the other company involved is being interviewed and they talk. I’m actually being told to say, “No comment.”

Answer:

First, tell the boss he or she may need to hire better attorneys. Today’s defense lawyers must know how to operate in an environment of openness and almost constant chatter. The bigger profile a case has, the more people are communicating (especially insiders), and the more quickly one’s reputation and, perhaps, one’s career is defined by silence. Silence is the most toxic strategy in communications. Things happening outside the courtroom can affect what goes on in the courtroom. This is one of the reasons attorneys want so much control. Increasingly, though, these external communications and situational factors must be managed as well. Failure to respond or inform creates a perception of guilt. In this era where, increasingly, everyone is connected, many are journalizing. Failure to speak can be a very toxic strategy indeed.

Second, my attitude with all non practitioners, including lawyers, is that one of my most important responsibilities is to transfer what I know about how communications works in these special circumstances to those who have key roles to play in the scenario. I am teaching constantly. And, of course, the lawyers play an extraordinarily crucial role. What I’m saying is, ditch the attitude. Instead, gain some significant altitude. Look at the value you bring to the entire transaction and all the players, and work to make it work. Attorneys are used to being in control of everything in litigation. It’s pretty hard to challenge that. You have to be pretty good, pretty smart, and ready with some really useful, helpful, new information and approaches to have significant impact.

My goal is that everyone, especially attorneys, learn from what I recommend and talk about. During a recent meeting discussing a complex Web site for a defendant client, as the discussion ended, the lead attorney looked up and somewhat surprised said, “I think I have my opening argument ready now.” My response was, “Before we’re done you’ll have your closing argument, as well.” Arrogance? No, I knew I would help him; and so can you.

More later . . . .

Bad Advice: Even a Dying Newspaper Can Throw a Knock-Out Punch When Threatened

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:41:00 +0000

When the New Jersey Hackensack University Medical Center learned that a very negative story was going to run in their local paper (The Bergen Record), just before the article appeared the hospital contacted the newspaper and told them that if the story ran the paper could no longer be sold at the hospital gift shop or in newspaper boxes; subscriptions would be ended; the hospital’s ads were to be removed from the media group’s Web site; and the advertising contract canceled.

Even a nine-year old can figure out how this story ends.

The article appeared, including commentary on the hospital’s preemptive actions and by noon, the newspaper was receiving apology phone calls from the hospital’s Board of Directors. Seems these stalwart gentlemen from the community accustomed to entertaining suck ups, naïvely believed that at most, the newspaper would knuckle under and, at the very least, would keep their names out of the paper. There was neither sucking nor anonymity.

Bad thinking. Dumb advice. Self-inflicted crisis creation, rather than crisis management. Predictable bad result.

Ironically, the daughter of the North Jersey media group’s chairman, Malcolm Borg (they own The Record), serves on the hospital’s Board. According to an account in The New York Times she had recused herself from most decisions having to do with newspaper.

In more than three decades of practice, every time I have seen this tactic tried, it blew up in the faces of the perpetrators, triggered longer-term damage and sanctions, and forced significant management change at the top of the organization. Reminds me of the story of the kid holding up the dairy store. He had a gun, he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. He looked down the barrel and pulled the trigger again. This time the weapon took his head off. The clock is ticking on whose head will role for this gaffe.

If you’d like more details, see The New York Times, May 4, 2009, “A battle with a New Jersey Newspaper Backfires.”

David Ogilvy Must Be Spinning in His Grave

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:46:00 +0000

David Ogilvy (June 23, 1911 to July 21, 1999) must be spinning in his grave.

Known as the “Father of Advertising” and someone a half century ago Time Magazine called “The most sought after wizard in today’s advertising industry,” Ogilvy was most notably known for expanding both the bounds of advertising creativity and the morality of advertising.

Imagine what David Ogilvy would say today as, according to O’Dwyer’s PR Report, “PR pros, advertisers and trade groups are crying foul over proposed updates to guidelines concerning endorsements and testimonials in advertising . . . . ” by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It may be true that if these regulations are passed, they will cause sweeping change in the way products, ideas, and concepts are presented to consumers. In what way, you ask? Advertising, marketing, and PR might be a lot more truthful.

Industry positions, including my own profession, would have Jack Nicholson looking at you and saying, as he did in A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth.” Sounds to me like there’s going to be a need for extraordinary crisis management and reputation recovery preparation.

Let’s see. What would actually happen if these regulations were approved? One example frequently mentioned is the product disclaimer, “results may vary.” Under the new regulations, this disclaimer would be replaced by very explicit descriptions of the variations in service, quality, appearance, etc. In another case, the pretty young actress advertising or endorsing a product must actually have used the product and gotten a result, or her limited use (or non-use) of the product must be disclosed in the ad. How about having “consumers” who endorse products in an ad be required to actually use the product, or if actors or non-users are used in the ad (and paid for their words), this must be disclosed prominently along with the advertised product. And here’s a big one, those reviewing a product, service, or an experience (such as in tourism) must disclose if they received the product for free and/or if they were paid to provide a review, or given something of value, e.g., a fishing vacation, to write about the fishing.

It is absolutely bazaar to listen to “communicators” obfuscate and whine about what’s being proposed. Dan Jaffe, Executive Vice President of Government Relations for the Association of National Advertisers, quoted in O’Dwyer’s PR Report (in April 2009 issue) said, “These disclosures go too far, are too restricting and make it impossible to apply useful information for consumers.”

It’s Jack Nicholson, again, being asked to tell us that we “can’t handle the truth.”

Other arguments against these regulations are typically silly. One argument is that the regulations create too much room for subjective interpretation. What are they talking about? The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), of which I’ve been a member for decades and a member of its Board of Ethics and Professional Standards for much of that time, provided the circumloquitous observation that “striking a balance among governmental interests to protect consumers from deception, the proposed updates . . . are not sufficiently clear to prevent confusion and uncertainty that will have communications professionals without adequate clarity to advise the clients who rely on them.” What a pile of crap.

These industry positions raise ethical questions that deserve serious thinking and public exploration. If the goal is something other than the truth, than what is the goal?

Well, get set for some interesting stories. A number of organizations, including the Association of National Advertisers, are threatening to go to court if the FTC pursues its regulations.

Going to court on this issue reminds me of the story about the crook who staged a robbery using a pistol. Out of anger, he fired the pistol, but nothing happened. So he looked down the barrel and pulled the trigger again. It worked this time.

My prediction? Communicators, public relations practitioners, advertisers, and marketers are going to be ripped to shreds and laughed to pieces. Where should these organizations and Jack O’Dwyer’s PR Report (which editorialized along with its marketing colleagues against FTC regulations) be:

Consumers ought to be able to get as much information as possible to make up their own minds. Information by professional communicators should be clear, concise, constructive, and aggressively truthful.
The notion that too much information will confuse consumers is demeaning and arrogant. This notion insults every consumer from the 95-year old who is struggling to understand the opaque phrases of the debate (like PRSA’s) to the four-year old who is enticed by the fancy packaging of a product only to open the box and find far less than what was anticipated, whether it’s cereal, a toy, a gift for mom, or just something he or she wanted to have to feel good.
If a food product comes packaged in a wonderful box with pictures of all kinds of fruits and flowers on the cover, but only one or two of those fruits and flowers are actually in the product, do you really have to ask if this is a truthful depiction of this product? A six-year old could figure this one out.

The sophomoric level that this discussion is about to take was typified by O’Dwyer’s PR Report editor, John Gingerich (in an editorial in the April 2009 issue), who said it best when, at the end of a stumbly, mumbly, fumbly, bumbly, and silly 250-word editorial opposing the regulations, he summarized, “If the messages are truthful—if they motivate and captivate audiences to set goals and achieve for themselves—who cares if the spokesperson, some impossibly perfect veneration of our cultural plasticity, has never used the product? We want to see stupid, beautiful people on T.V. At least I do.”

After reading this, do you really have to guess who really can’t handle the truth?

David (Ogilvy), rest easy, old friend. This time the government is here to help.

Watch Your Language: A Lesson for Callous, Arrogant, and Insensitive Attorneys

jel@e911.com (Jim Lukaszewski) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:09:00 +0000

What happened:

A Bridgeport, Connecticut federal judge awarded a teenager who had been victimized in a child pornography situation $200,000 for what the local newspaper called a, “well-heeled professional who downloaded images of her being sexually abused” (The News-Times, Tuesday, February 24, 2009, page A5; The Associated Press contributed to this story).

The defense attorney’s response to the ruling:

The first of its kind ruling drew this response from the defendant’s attorney, Jonathan Einhorn:

“It’s not a reasonable award when you consider the injuries this victim suffered related to what my client may have caused,” Einhorn said. “An award like this will probably open the floodgates.”

What this defense attorney might have meant:

“This kid is probably responsible for being in the circumstance she found herself in. She shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Where were her parents when all of this was going on?

My client is the innocent victim of readily available material on the Web. Those who produced it should be punished rather than my client, who had virtually nothing to do with it. This woman was not damaged enough to receive an award like this.”

What the defense attorney should have said:

“We abhor the abuse of any individual, for any reason. My client is already being punished by the court for his actions in this matter, adding this new burden will simply encourage others to attempt to do the same.

We will appeal this decision.”