Lessons for Business Leaders from the Massachusetts Election

The talking heads and columnists will analyze/spin the politics behind the Massachusetts upset by Scott Brown (R) over Martha Coakley (D) for Teddy Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat.

At CommCore, we think there's a lesson or two for business leaders in all this: First, know your customer. Second, celebrity CEOs don't necessarily win over buyers.

In the first case, Coakley and her team ran a weak campaign that never connected with voters:
- She lost the sound bite war. Her gaffe was calling Curt Schilling Red Sox star pitcher and blue collar hero a New York Yankee. In contrast, Brown had a slam dunk with the line, "It's not the Kennedy seat, it's the people's seat."
- She made tactical errors like going to Washington to meet with lobbyists and major donors a week before the election. The cumulative effect made it appear she was elitist, out-of-touch, didn't know who the voters were, or understand their angst about so-called Big Government and Fat Cats.
- She never introduced herself with a compelling storyline to back her law enforcement credentials as a prosecutor. How many people knew her husband was a cop? How come he wasn't out there in person and in TV spots touting her toughness and caring for everyday citizens?

Can you imagine a business successfully touting its product or service without a thorough understanding of the customer, the market, and communicating a compelling brand message that resonates? That's what Coakley failed to do. Wealthy suburban lawyer Brown, meantime, drove around in a highly-visible old pickup truck with 200,000 miles on it, and was portrayed as a hero of the people.

The second point, about celebrity CEOs, reminds us of the old line from Tip O'Neill, a Bostonian and former Speaker of the House. O'Neill's mantra: "All politics is local." So while "national CEO" President Obama is personally popular in the state, he couldn't convince Massachusetts voters to change their minds about the candidates/products in front of them despite his star quality and oratorial skill.

Lesson number two for business leaders: senior executives' popularity and celebrity are assets to be tapped carefully and selectively. They are not substitutes for an enterprise properly framing and communicating strong brand and product messages that meet a target audience's needs and wants.

Can you think of businesses and their leaders who have made the same mistakes as the Coakley campaign? Conversely, which business leaders have learned the communications and public relations lessons and managed best to connect with their target market?

In Crisis Communications Perception Is Reality

Point One: The only thing that matters as much as a leader BEING in command of a dangerous situation is whether he or she APPEARS to others to be in command.

Point Two: The only thing that matters as much as what you MEAN to say is what other people THINK you meant when you said it.

These are tried-and-true lesson of crisis communications learned once again the hard way by the Obama Administration in the wake of the failed attempt by an alleged Nigerian terrorist to blow up an American jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day.

Regarding Point One: The administration waited three days to have President Obama address the nation from his vacation in Hawaii. Before he spoke out on TV about his order to security agencies to re-examine the entire terror suspect watch-list process, weekend news reports had him "monitoring" the situation while he was played golf. By Sunday and into Monday morning reporters and commentators on several networks and in some major newspapers were openly questioning the president's judgment on that score. Of course the President was on top of the situation. But sticking to your tee time for a round of golf is not the media image you want of your Communicator-In-Chief in the 24 hours following the potential loss of close to 300 lives in a domestic terror incident.

Regarding Point Two: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's appearance on a Sunday TV talk show was marked by one sound bite that could come back to haunt her: "The system worked." Huh? The alleged terrorist got on the plane despite missed warnings to American security agencies that he was considered a potential threat, including a warning phone call to US authorities several weeks ago from the young man's father. He carried explosives and an incendiary device through security in Amsterdam. He managed to light the device, but failed to cause an explosion apparently because of a detonator malfunction. And he was taken into custody when a fellow passenger tackled him, preventing him from trying again to cause the blast. The "system" worked? Shades of Alexander Haig.

Of course what the Secretary MEANT to say was that the post-incident response worked, and the nation's security operations remained intact and on alert. She was trying to reassure the American public. But that's not what the sound bite conveyed. If anything, it made government leadership appear to be disconnected from the reality of a near-miss caused, in part, by the failure of security agencies to spot the threat in advance.

In times of crisis perception IS reality. At CommCore Consulting Group we counsel our clients that how leaders appear and what they say is as important as what they know and what they are doing. What do you think of the President's and Secretary Napolitano's handling of their responses to this crisis?

Leaders and Communications

Jumping into the fray, Jack and Suzy Welch opined on a President Obama Leadership Report Card in BusinessWeek. While not agreeing with all of the policies, so far the former GE CEO gives him an A for leadership.

The comments the Welch's make about Obama and communications can apply to almost any CEO. "You can't communicate too much, especially when you're galvanizing change."

In the midst of this economic turmoil and change, I believe CEO's need to keep communicating with employees, stakeholders, retirees, customers. There is a tendency to hunker down and come out only occasionally. Why keep sending out bad news, is one argument? That's not the point. Yes, there is bad news, but it's how you say it that makes a difference.

An effective CEO and his/her communications team can do a good job even with bad or "eh" news. There is bound to be some positive information to transmit; and you can figure out ways to demonstrate how the enterprise is working harder, more efficiently and maximizing opportunities.

Think about the ways you can communicate: speeches, walking the halls, town halls, media interviews, online chat rooms, old fashioned letters to the house. Who do you think is doing well?

All a-Twitter about a Tweet

An online message only 140 characters long can create a world of trouble. That's what Ketchum PR's VP and Director of its Interactive Services Division James Andrews found out while in Memphis last week after he typed the following message onto social media website Twitter:
'True confession but I'm in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, 'I would die if I had to live here.' "

That he was on his way to meet with Ketchum client FedEx which is headquartered in Memphis seems to have been the catalyst for what followed.

Typically, I first found out about it via a tweet from Tweeter @davidhenderson. Andrews found out much more quickly than that. First, some Tweeters posted objections on Twitter, forcing Andrews to respond in typical (and in this case unclear) Twitter short-hand: "My commentary on my arrival was based on encountering ppl who didn't want me at hotel vs the city. Sorry."

Then came the big one: a fellow Tweeter and FedEx employee who earlier had attended a presentation by Andrews to FedEx, wrote an e-mail to Andrews that he also copied to the entire senior management of both FedEx and Ketchum.

He wrote in part: "We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We're confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness form someone in your position as vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of social networking is that people read what you write."

He went on to write: "James, everyone at today's event, including those in the auditorium with you this morning, just received their first paycheck of 2009 containing a 5% pay cut which we wholeheartedly support because it continues the tradition established by [FedEx Founder Fred Smith] of doing whatever it takes to protect jobs. [M]any of us question the expense of paying Ketchum to produce the video open for today's event, work that could have been achieved by internal, award-winning professionals."

In a subsequent blog posting, Andrews apologized: "Two days ago I made a comment on Twitter that was an emotional response to a run-in I had with an intolerant individual. The tweet was aimed at the individual, not the city of Memphis. If I offended the residents of Memphis, TN, I'm sorry. That was not my intention. I understand that people have enormous pride in their hometown."

He then tried to spin the incident into an example of the constructive function of social media: "While some would say this is the evil side of social media, I would say its pure intention is to foster a back and forth dialogue between people rather than a shield to hide behind and replace human contact."

I imagine that in the emotional aftermath of an unpleasant incident he broke a cardinal rule of blogging: he transmitted his Tweet while still upset. While hardly an indictment of social media, it is a stark reminder of the importance of the evolving new social media communications rules and protocols that must be adhered to; ignore or forget them at your peril.

In truth, the rule that we at CommCore insist on for our clients applies to ALL communications: think before you speak. Remember Secretary of State Al Haig's "I'm in control here" gaffe when President Reagan was shot?

From what we can tell FedEx is keeping Ketchum on as its agency, and Andrews still has his job.

What's your take? What does this incident say to you about the risks and benefits of social media in general, and the short-hand micro-blogging of Twitter?

New Years Communications Resolutions

Happy New Year. I'm not a big fan of New Year resolutions, but the turning of the page last night on the calendar did make me think about a few ideas. Here are my initial top three Communications resolutions for 2009. Anyone with at least one?

Write the MEDIAtor blog more frequently.

Provide a perspective on the highs and lows of the PR/Communications industry.

Keep up the work life balance in a tough economy

Write the blog more frequently. By this I also mean staying on top of all the rapid changes in social media. From Facebook, to Twitter, to LinkedIn, there are only so many hours in the day. But if we don't stay on top of how all of us receive and send information, we'll be stuck in the days of 3 networks.

Highs and lows on PR/Communications. We'd like to hear more about PRWins (see earlier Blogs). It's not that PR should be a winner at the expense of other disciplines, in the communications efforts of companies, associations and government entities. However, when PR comes up with an idea and executes we should be sharing and crowing.

Work/life balance is harder in a tough economic time. As hard as we all can work, we can't recharge, reflect, think or improve without some time to relax and kick back.

Happy New Year. Anyone with a resolution?

Plausible...Or Implausible?...Deniability

Under fire from many quarters since President-elect Obama selected him to deliver the Inaugural Day sermon, the noted Evangelical Rev. Rick Warren has just removed anti-gay language from his Saddleback Church website.

This move comes a few days after his speech in Long Beach, CA to a Muslim convention in which he stressed his open-mindedness: "As-salaam alaikum....Let me just get this over real quickly. I love Muslims. (applause) And, for the media's purpose, I happen to love gays and straights."

Kind of reminds me in style and tone of another sound bite from another recent highly-publicized appearance, the first press conference by embattled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in which he strode the podium and started off: "I'm here to tell you right off the bat that I am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing. I intend to stay on the job and I will fight this thing every step of the way. I will fight. I will fight. I will fight until I take my last breath. I have done nothing wrong."

Seems to us at CommCore Consulting Group that both Warren and Blagojevich - different men in the spotlight under very different circumstances - have resorted to the same kind of communication by denial: If I make my point quickly and emphatically enough, the operative sound bite will erase prior history. In Warren's case it's a documented litany of intolerant pronouncements; in the governor's case it's the tapes of him touting how he's willing to sell Obama's senate seat to the highest bidder.

What's your take on crisis response by strident sound bite when the operative quote contradicts documented statements and actions? Does passionate, dramatic knee-jerk denial work in today's short attention span media environment? Do these blasts ever signal a change of thinking or genuine softening of polarizing views? Or will such sound bites come back to haunt he, or she, who utters them?

IR and the Larger Communications Picture

The November issue of Update, the publication of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), features an article titled, "Corporate Transparency in the Internet Age."

Lynn Casey, CEO of communications firm Padilla Spear Beardsley, writes: "Performance first. Recognition, second, achieved by professionally planned and executed communication. At its best that means that a publicly held company walks its talk with all the people who are important to its success - customers, employees, Wall Street, lawmakers, special interest groups, the communities in which it operates. Then it communicates with them about its performance - clearly and consistently - so they will recognize that the company is trying to do what it said it will do."

In the same issue, Carol Metzker quotes an Investor Relations Officer as follows: "In this storm, you're not going to boost your company's valuation much by presenting your best case scenario. Instead, aim to maintain credibility by presenting a fair picture."

Both Casey and Metzker confirm what CommCore has been advising for a while now: in an age of 24/7 cross-platform multimedia and user-generated content, PR must have a strategic partnership with all communications functions. This includes on-point, timely and above all consistent executive-level messaging via IR, corporate communications, public affairs, and marketing communications.

Are Casey and Metzker preaching to the NIRI choir about the importance of cross-functional executive communications planning and skills - translation: transparency? What's been your experience of how IR and PR are changing and collaborating? What challenges do you face?