Two lessons from the Congo

You may have read about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton losing her cool at a town hall meeting in the Congo this week. When a student asked her about what her husband thought about China’s and the World Bank’s infrastructure projects in the Congo, this is what the chief U.S. diplomat said, according to The Christian Science Monitor:

“You want to know what my husband thinks?” Clinton reportedly replied in a forceful voice. “My husband is not the secretary of state, I am. You ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I’m not going to channel my husband.”

You don’t have to be in executive communications to guess what happens when reason and mouth go asynchronous. There may have been many causes for Madame Secretary to be a little testy that day. Jetlag and her brutal travel schedule may have played a role.  Or maybe she had a conversation with her spouse that morning and it lingered. Well, it happens to all of us.  But that’s not what this post is about.

Unfortunately, the media focused more on Madame Secretary’s outburst than on the cause and recovery of the unfortunate episode. I got intrigued after I read the first story and saw a YouTube video of the accident.  Something clearly didn’t add up. Let’s see if we can learn a few things from the incident.

Lesson number one: get the facts

The first stories and a transcript of the conversation between the Congolese student and Madame Clinton should have set warning bells in the Foggy Bottom.  You don’t have to be a journalist to realize this was a story. I may be wrong, but someone from the department must have been recording the town hall meeting.  The tape should have been analyzed carefully because Madame Secretary was a bit more aggressive than usual. And you have to see or listen to her to appreciate the full impact of her remarks. Take a look at this YouTube ITN video and compare it to the Christian Science Monitor story:

You may have noticed how there seemed to be some confusion about what the student actually asked, suggested by the way Madame Secretary took her earphones off, looked left and right and said: “Wait … you want me to say what my husband thinks?”

Now, fast forward to the State Department briefing the next day, given by Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Philip Crowley, shown in this State Department video. Fifteen minutes and 31 seconds into the video, a reporter asks a question about the incident.  Here is the official State Department’s Daily Press Briefing transcript:

QUESTION: P.J., you told CNN that the student who asked the question yesterday was apparently lost in translation, had touched a nerve with Secretary Clinton. I was wondering if you can explain a little more of what you meant by that. And also, does Secretary Clinton have any regret? Is she sorry that she lost her cool over this offense?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I would say two things: First, it is our understanding that the student – perhaps he was nervous in talking to the Secretary of State. He meant to say – meant to ask a question about the views of President Obama. By mistake, he said the views of President Clinton. So there was a – and he was speaking one language, but obviously, as I said, what the Secretary heard, I think you have to put it in context. Obviously, she is the Secretary of State. As we’ve seen, her husband, as a significant global figure in his own right, has his own agenda.

Lesson number two: don’t speculate

The spokesperson wasn’t sure what happened. “It is our understanding… perhaps he was nervous,” is pure speculation. “He meant to say – meant to ask…” is more speculation.  In fact, we know now that the student asked for President Obama’s opinion about the subject of China’s and the World Bank’s involvement in the Congo .  Unfortunately, the translator made a mistake and said President Clinton instead.  And that begs another question: does the State Department have its own translators? At this point in the video, Mr. Crawley goes to his prepared text.

MR. CROWLEY: But as I said to CNN, it’s important to understand the context here, that one of – an abiding theme that she has in her trip to Africa is empowering women. As the question was posed to her, it was posed in a way that said I want to get the views of two men, but not you, the Secretary of State. And I think it – obviously, she reacted to that. But I think it’s part of something that she is obviously very passionate about, which is making sure that if – that the role of women in the agricultural sector and the political sector and civil society – if Africa is going to advance in the future, the role of women has to be more significant in the continent than it is today.

QUESTION: But back to my core question, though, sir.

MR. CROWLEY: And just to finish the –

QUESTION: Does she have any regret?

MR. CROWLEY: Just to finish the point –

QUESTION: Go ahead. I thought you were done. I’m sorry.

MR. CROWLEY: — at the conclusion of the town hall, she and the young man got together and I don’t think there were any hard feelings that were –

QUESTION: But chauvinism aside, sir, does she have any regret about –

MR. CROWLEY: I have not talked to the Secretary. She is –

QUESTION: — losing her cool as the top diplomat in public?

MR. CROWLEY: She’s currently in the air coming back from Goma and I have not talked with her.

QUESTION: Was the student selected to make – to ask a question?

MR. CROWLEY: I –

QUESTION: Pre-selected?

MR. CROWLEY: I do not know.

QUESTION: Isn’t it – doesn’t it strike you as a little bit odd to take on a student like this? It’s hardly an argument between equals, whatever he might say that’s outrageous or unsettling. Does it suggest a certain super-sensitivity on the Secretary’s part?

MR. CROWLEY: Again, obviously, she reacted to what she heard, but resolved it with the student before the event ended.

QUESTION: Just a follow-up on this. You just said that this was an error on the student’s part. Yesterday –

MR. CROWLEY: No, no, I’m saying it’s been reported that the student meant to say President Obama, said President Clinton by mistake.

And now comes the killer question, based entirely on Mr. Crowley’s speculative answers.

QUESTION: Well, okay. No, but that’s what I’m trying to clarify, because yesterday, officials at the State Department and what the traveling party were saying that this was a translation error by the translator. You’re saying now that this was –

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I –

QUESTION: — a student being nervous and saying the wrong thing. Which one is it?

MR. CROWLEY: We – I wasn’t there, okay? And I was careful when I talked to CNN to say there may have been an error in translation. Clearly, she reacted to the English translation of the student’s question. It has been reported – I’ve seen one report where the student said he meant to say something else rather than what he did say. There was – the traveling party went back to the French – the original question as it was posed in French to try to understand exactly what the student said. I don’t know what the sourcing was by the network that I saw last night that said that the student meant to say something else.

All I’m saying is that, to Barry’s question, which is how the Secretary responded to the question as it was posed to her in English, I think it’s important to put that in context, which is she’s in Africa focused significantly on the role of women in that country, and as it was posed to her, as she said, I’m the Secretary of State, do you want to ask – you want my opinion on an issue, I’m happy to provide it. But she’s not there to provide a perspective of –

QUESTION: I understand that, but –

MR. CROWLEY: — as it was posed in English.

QUESTION: Right, I understand that. Okay, I guess where my confusion was is that you were describing the incident in the initial question – answer to your initial question. And I’m kind of curious why you chose to highlight the –

MR. CROWLEY: I have not talked to the traveling party today to find out if they have further clarified, based on their analysis last night. I don’t think that we have a problem with the translation per se, and the report that the student said I meant to say Obama, I said Clinton, so that there – actually, the question was fairly posed, but that the student posed the question the wrong way, I have no reason to doubt that version of events.

QUESTION: Okay. So that’s sounds to be the one you’re going with then.

MR. CROWLEY: Well –

QUESTION: I mean, you’ve gone back to that several times, so –

MR. CROWLEY: Put it this way: If you want to ask me about the Secretary’s comments, I’ll be happy to take – to go into that in further detail. I can’t speak for the young student.

Yes.

QUESTION: Can I switch topics?

MR. CROWLEY: Please. (Laughter.)

This incident makes a great case study for spokespeople in the corporate world too.  Make sure you have a competent person with your executive wherever he or she goes, including people that speak the language of the country they visit.  If the unexpected happens, meaning your executive says things he or she shouldn’t, make sure you have a credible statement ready, based on facts. Never speculate.  There is nothing wrong in saying, “I’ll get back to you as soon as I talk to our people who were with our executives.”

Undercover Boss

Undercover Boss is the first in a series of documentaries about CEOs who want to know what their employees really think about them and their company.  In the first segment, a beard and workers’ protective suit allows Stephen Martin, the 43-year-old CEO of the Clugston Group, to live on the front lines for ten days.  It was produced by Channel 4 in the UK, a commercially funded public broadcaster.

I found out about the series through a great article by Stefan Stern in Financial Times.  Mr. Stern describes a key dilemma faced by many chief executives: “Employee attitude surveys, brown bag lunches, focus groups, informal chats: managers try quite hard to find out what their staff are thinking. But the results are mixed at best. What are your staff thinking? Admit it – you don’t really know.” 

You can add town hall meetings where questions are often planted and staging is more reminiscent of a rock-star spectacle than a genuine dialogue.  And let’s not forget emails from the CEO. The readership of those decreases as you move down the organization.  Yes, the rate of opening the email may be 96 percent but that statistic is as meaningless as the number of hits on your website. Remember when MBWA (Management By Walking Around) was all the rage?  Nice, but they often look like a royal family walkabout.  A walkabout also happens to be a purported Australian aboriginal ritual of manhood. You may argue that all of these attempts at a dialogue are better than nothing and I would have agreed with you three years ago.  Today, they remind me more of a definition of insanity – doing the same stuff over and over, expecting different results.

Mr. Martin, the undercover boss, learned a few interesting things. According to Personneltoday.com, “Martin said he was able to get an ‘unfiltered view’ of how his staff saw the company and the issues they were concerned about, identifying real problems with communication and skills.”  And it gets better, or worse, if you’re doing executive communications for Mr. Martin. One of the biggest problems he identified was “his regular e-mail communication and notices to staff about developments within the business were not getting through to many of those working on the construction sites.”

“I thought I was getting my message out there about what we were doing, but it became clear that workers on site were not getting that message because we were not talking to them in a format or language they wanted,” Mr. Martin said.

According to Personneltoday.com, Martin is trying to overcome these problems by setting up teams consisting of labourers, supervisors and managers who meet frequently to discuss developments in the workplace.

The solution, by mixing different layers of organization, is bound to improve the exchange of ideas.  But it’s tough. Mr. Martin and other CEOs are trying to overcome barriers to communications erected by a command-and-control management and communications structure we’ve had for 150 years, originally patterned on the old Prussian army.  The attempt may get rid of some of the filters that exist between each layer, but will not provide that “unfiltered view” acquired by going undercover.  Mr. Martin may also want to consider adding another tool – social media. This would be a more interactive and personal way to communicate with his organization compared to traditional broadcast tools like email.

Channel 4 will broadcast Undercover Boss in two weeks.  CBS is planning to broadcast “the new reality series” later this year.

Social media and blowing smoke at Starbucks

Adam Broitman’s piece in iMedia Connection – “Social media: whose job is it anyway? – asked six thought leaders to define social media.

Here are their responses:

1. Social Media is the creation, sharing, and commenting on digital content.

2. The sharing of information between people.

3. Any form of media that alows for immediate, public consumer response that’s incorporated into the content produced.

4. Social media is media in any form for any platform created by, for, and with consumers.

5. Social media is simply talking *with* — not at — your constituencies (customers, friends, partners, prospects, etc.) & engaging them online.

6. Tools and processes used to connect, share, and to organize and collaborate with others.

Twitter rules were followed, so each answer had to be 140 characters or less. If Twitter had more characters, perhaps they may have expanded their answers to include social activism, but answer #5 covers it best from my perspective, with one caveat: without the right message (content) and strategy, you’re not going get results with social media.

PR Week Breakfast Briefing had an interesting item about a social media campaign reported by Los Angeles Times this morning. Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz was targeted as anti-union, with his company exploiting workers. The campaign – launched last week by Brave New Films of Culver City – has its own website, stopstarbucks.com, and a video called “What do Starbucks and Wal-Mart have in common?” The video should be watched by every corporate and executive communications department.
It starts with Mr. Schultz’s interview on 60 Minutes, which goes downhill for him in a blink of an eye, thanks to Scott Pelley, the 60 Minutes correspondent.
While the interview was generally favorable to Starbucks, Mr. Pelley zeroed in on a Starbucks’ message that had come back to haunt them:

“One of our colleagues coined a phrase a long time ago and said, ‘We’re not in the business of filling bellies.
We’re in the business of filling souls,’” says Schultz.

“Oh now, come on,” says Pelley. “No wait a minute. That’s too … this is a company. This is a corporation. Come on.”

“OK, it is a corporation,” Schultz acknowledges.

“You’re blowing smoke now,” Pelley replies.

Now, the Vatican may get away with saying it’s in the business of filling souls, with a little smoke as a part of the ritual, but Starbucks? Ten years ago, the interview would have been sitting in the archives. But thanks to new media, it became an opening line in the union organizing effort, exploited brilliantly by the smart people at Brave New Films. By using social media, including Twitter, to hijack Starbucks’ own campaign, the union-organizing effort may or may not succeed. But consider this: the video was watched by nearly 40,000 people and an online petition demanding that Schultz “quit following Wal-Mart’s anti-union example” was signed by 12,000 people. And the damage to Starbucks reputation? Now that’s something to think about before you write the next, hopefully not a nebulous, message for your CEO without a proof point.

Does Mr. Smith ever go to Washington?

I’m not sure I would have seen this amazing movie if I had not gone to film school.  Back then, there were days I would see four movies a day and there are only a few I can still remember.  But there is one movie from my American Film course that has been on my mind a lot lately: Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

If you have not seen that movie, let me take you to Wikipedia to introduce its impact: “When it was first released – the film premiered in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., on October 17, 1939, sponsored by the National Press Club, an event to which 4000 guests were invited, including 45 senators – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was attacked by the Washington press, and politicians in the U.S. Congress, as anti-American and pro-Communist for its portrayal of corruption in the American government.” 

It gets worse: “It is known that Alben W. Barkley, the Senate Majority Leader, called the film “silly and stupid,’ and said it “makes the Senate look like a bunch of crooks.”  He also remarked that the film was “a grotesque distortion” of the Senate, “as grotesque as anything ever seen! Imagine the Vice President of the United States winking at a pretty girl in the gallery in order to encourage a filibuster!” Barkley thought the film “…showed the Senate as the biggest aggregation of nincompoops on record!”

“The film was banned in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Russia and Falangist Spain. According to Capra, the film was altered in certain European countries to make it conform with official ideology.”

“When a ban on American films was imposed in German-occupied France in 1942, some theaters chose to show Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as the last movie before the ban went into effect. One theater owner in Paris reportedly screened the film nonstop for 30 days after the ban was announced.” 

What I remember and love about the film is its affirmation of decency, (even) in politics, way back when Mr. Smith was the embodiment of his constituents’ interests and needs.  Politics back then may not have been as civilized as portrayed by Mr. Smith, but decency mattered. I watched last White House Correspondents Dinner on the C-SPAN website and a few things registered high on my PR Richter scale.  Was it really necessary to make all those ad hominem attacks from Mother’s Day to kidney failure?

Now, you must be wondering what this has to do with executive communications.  The same thing as in politics: decency matters.

Executive profile database – the ready part

Ready-Aim-Fire is the essential mantra that should be playing in your head every time you’re preparing your executive for a media interview or a presentation. This post is about the “ready” part of the mantra, because without being ready your aim will be off and you may get fired.

An executive profile database should assemble everything each key executive has ever presented, including every interview, blog, twitter, audio and video. When it comes to interviews, make sure you have both – your records as well as the published/broadcast results. Include media training videos in the database to remind you of their strengths and weaknesses. The next step is to integrate all files and ensure that you have capabilities to generate reports by subject, type of media, interviewer and audience.

The database should be an integral part of your dynamic executive communications plan. In this case, the “dynamic” means that you keep on updating absolutely everything all the time. If you’re doing it right, these updates will trigger subtle and not so subtle changes in your plan for each executive. For example, if investors’ posts start tracking negative for any part of your business, it’s time to generate responses that may include your CFO or CEO when it gets serious.

The executive profile database will allow you to generate briefing material instantly and you can access it from anywhere, anytime. One more thing: make sure each executive has access to his/her own database.

If you need help setting up your executive profile database, please contact me at http://alfadogpr.com/contact/.

PS For those of you in the financial sector, please check Simon Johnson’s post and comments.

Leadership Lessons from President Obama

Have you noticed how much our leadership values have changed since the economy tanked?  President Obama’s visit to Canada yesterday clearly showed this change, demonstrated by the value of decency, authenticity and, yes, intelligence.

The growing pain of the current economic mess helps to leave behind leadership attributes of the previous era, which ranged from unadulterated greed, arrogance and stupidity on a grand scale.  The new American president’s leadership style denotes a clear break with the past and a new era of leadership.

President Obama’s charisma helps, but charisma can only take you so far.  Many leaders start with great expectations, and promises they cannot or fail to keep.  One of the first challenges Mr. Obama had to overcome were unrealistic expectations of messianic proportions.  His inauguration address was a great example of trying to manage high expectations.

The President knows how to get across his objective in a way that connects with his audience. “I came to Canada on my first trip as President to underscore the closeness and importance of the relationship between our two nations, and to reaffirm the commitment of the United States to work with friends and partners to meet the common challenges of our times,” Mr. Obama said.  There is a lot of emotion in that statement but, to top it all, he said,  “I love this country.”

His unscheduled stop at an Ottawa market to buy sweets and souvenirs for his daughters made the President look like a caring person. It was also the only occasion when he could reach out and shake hands of ordinary Canadians and they responded with love and enthusiasm.  Caring is another critical attribute of the new leadership.  As the unemployment lines continue to grow daily, it will likely be appreciated more than ever.

What was really interesting was the impact the short visit of only a few hours had on Americans back home.  Reading responses to articles in Huffington Post, they ranged from people writing about tears in their eyes to feeling proud again to be Americans.

Now, to bring it back to executive communications, when was the last time your CEO’s speech brought tears to your employees’ eyes or made them proud to work for your company?  What did you do to make them think that you really care about them?  And, above all: when was the last time you said – in one sentence  - what is it you want to do and how is it going to benefit your company?

About

AlfadogPR Inc.

360°Dynamic Executive Communications™ is real-time, on-the-spot communications for today’s executive. It’s about covering and anticipating every angle, situation and potential threat. We’ll help you develop your own style – one that best suits your personality and improves your effectiveness in communicating your business objectives. We’ll do it by providing you with one-to-one confidential counsel based on experience and knowledge of both strategic and tactical elements of communications.

Our clients are C-level executives and board members who want to develop strategic communications content, articulate business challenges, personalize their delivery, and know how to take advantage of both traditional and social media. Please contact me if you have an urgent communications need. I can help whether it’s communicating with employees, shareholders, the media or other key stakeholders.

Biography

Peter Janecek has 25 years of experience in journalism and corporate public relations. He launched the consulting practice in 2004, focusing primarily on integrated marketing communications and working closely with senior executives to provide positioning and content for corporate websites. Since October of 2008, the executive communication practice has expanded, becoming the central focus of our practice. Prior to starting the consultancy, Peter was senior vice-president and partner with Fleishman-Hillard Canada, leading the firm’s Technology and B2B practice.

He has provided strategic counsel to senior executives and worked with global companies including AGFA, Avanade, Booz Allen Hamilton (Europe), BCE, Bell Canada, Bell Mobility, JD Edwards, SMTC Corporation, Sybase, Sybase iAnywhere and Intuit. Before joining Fleishman-Hillard, Peter was Director of the Press Office at Nortel Networks.

He has also held senior positions with other high-tech companies. Peter began his communications career as a producer for CanadaAM program and the CTV National News, producing stories from the field in the UK and the US. He graduated with a BA from the University of Toronto, studying international relations and economics, and also has an Honours BA in film from York University.

The Blog

I started this blog to initiate conversations about current events and trends that impact executive communications. I hope that you will offer your opinions and arguments so we can help each other to better serve our stakeholders or clients. We reserve the right to exclude ad hominem and offensive arguments.