I join with many of you in mourning the passing of Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley, 15th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who died on Jan. 27, 2008. While his death is not terribly surprising and he now reunites with his beloved wife, we will miss his leadership, his humor and his example. He leaves behind a legacy that will never be forgotten and will be difficult to match. His example in reaching out to nations of the world, expanding missionary work, instituting the perpetual education fund, building the Conference Center, and building temples closer to members of the church throughout the world have led the church’s growth at the beginning of this century.
He also was a strong supporter of public communications and working with the media. Most people would shrink from an interview with Mike Wallace or Larry King, but Pres. Hinckley stepped up to both of them with positive outcomes. His leadership expanded the role of the church’s public affairs department, including the growing use of new media to share the gospel message and clarify the position of the church. Who can forget the images of Pres. Hinckley during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games as he welcomed the world to the LDS Church’s home town.
On a personal note, I got to meet Pres. Hinckley and shake his hand near the end of my mission. As some of you know, I was fortunate enough to serve the last six months of my mission in Nauvoo, Ill. Pres. Hinckley, who at the time (1982) was a counselor to Pres. Spencer W. Kimball, came to Nauvoo to dedicate several historic sites, including the site of the original Nauvoo Temple. Check out the photo below (but don’t laugh too hard at how young and geeky I look; it WAS the 80s!). This photo was taken where the Nauvoo Temple now stands again. It was a great honor for me to meet him even briefly. At the time, he was the only healthy member of the First Presidency. I remember him saying that in the 30 days before the dedication in Nauvoo, he had traveled 30,000 miles for the church. His dedication and service to the church would fill our collective lifetimes of service!
Join me in remembering his example of dedication and service, both to the church and to public relations and communication. His life is a great model for sharing the truth boldly and lovingly. He addressed tough issues directly and without apology. He defended the truth by correcting misstatements of others about the church. Many people provide good role models in specific areas of their lives. Pres. Hinckley is a model for all areas of life.
I recently read an article by Kerry Patterson of VitalSmarts in his monthly “Kerrying On” column about how highly workers value a little appreciation. I learned a long time ago the value of being specific in the praise you provide to others. A general “good job” has much less impact than “Thanks for helping me create those charts for the presentation. That made a huge difference in the quality and saved me a lot of time. I appreciate your willingness to help out and share your expertise.” Yet we often don’t take the few extra seconds to be specific about praise.
I hope you’ll indulge this personal example. When my son Bryan was in fourth grade, we went to a parent-teacher conference and heard his teacher explain how helpful Bryan was with other students in the class. When we got home, I was talking to Bryan and told him, “Your teacher told us how happy she is that you’re willing to help other students in the class. Mom and I appreciate that, too. It shows that you’re trying hard to learn, and it’s a great example to other students when you’re willing to help the teacher like that. Thanks for being the kind of person who wants to help others.” Bryan walked over to me, put his arms around me, and said, “I love you, too, Dad.” Note that I didn’t use the words “I love you, Bryan,” in this conversation. But that’s exactly what he heard when he received specific praise about his performance.
While we may not want co-workers to think “I love you,” the message that comes with genuine, specific praise is one people crave. You are valued. You are important. You belong here. That’s a message that people cannot hear enough, whether they are your employees, your family members or your neighbors. When you praise, praise specifically. The results are worth the few extra seconds it takes.
I’m one of those alarming people. Whenever I walk into or out of certain stores – Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot and Walgreen’s to name a few – I set off the security alarm. I finally figured out it’s the electronic lock for my car that sets off the alarm. I’ve learned to just keep walking.
And I’ve never been stopped, which is curious to me. Employees look up when the alarm sounds, but they never stop to see if I have stolen merchandise. This raises two questions for me. First, how do they know the alarm is innocent when I set it off? Second, if they don’t know and let everyone go when the alarm sounds, then what good is the alarm in the first place?
When this alarm situation happened again recently (at the post office), it set me thinking about the alarms we run across in public relations. I once had an employee come to me terribly upset because of some bad publicity one of our products had received in her region. How would we respond? What should we say to the employees in that region? How should we address this with management? After reading the negative article, my response was to do nothing beyond what we’d planned for the product launch.
Why? To me, this was an innocent alarm. The one article did not set off a hailstorm of negative commentary around the product. The positive press we eventually got dramatically outweighed the negative. Making a fuss over the one bad article would have called more attention to the negative press than was deserved.
The key in public relations is knowing when to respond to an alarm and when to let it ring for a few seconds and then shut itself off. Weigh carefully the impact of responding to an alarm. If the response will bring more attention to the negative, let it go. If the alarm is loud and potentially harmful, act quickly before the bad news spreads. Knowing your industry, the media, your key publics and your client/management, will help you make the right decision on which action to take.
Here’s some great advice on writing for public relations from Doug Williams, a principal at Tomasini-W2K, a marketing and public relations firm based in Houston:
”If you want to be credible, be specific. … Heinz doesn’t have a ‘multitude’ of varieties; it has 57. Bresler’s doesn’t have a ‘whole lot’ of flavors; it has 33. There aren’t ‘many’ deadly sins; there are seven. Well, eight, if you count vague writing.”
Thanks to Ann Wylie for including this quote in her writing tips on Jan. 4, 2008. I completely agree; specific, concrete writing engages readers both intellectually and emotionally. Work toward writing that creates a clear, specific image in the reader’s mind to get both understanding and engagement from your key publics.
I saved this post until after the Iowa caucuses last night in order to see the results of Mike Huckabee’s gamesmanship with the media earlier this week. In case you missed it (and I don’t know how you could have with all the coverage it got), former Gov. Huckabee held a press conference Monday to announce that he would not run the negative ad he created to counter claims in Mitt Romney’s ads. Then Huckabee showed the ad to the media, professedly to prove to the media that he actually had the ad and he wasn’t making it up.
Apparently he got what he wanted as the media filmed and played the ad on newscasts across the country without Huckabee paying a cent for an advertising buy. Someone on his staff may have counseled him that this was a good plan – use the media to distribute your message for free instead of buying air time – but was the backlash worth it? Huckabee and his staff should have known it was a bad idea the second the media started laughing out loud when the candidate announced he was going to show them the ad. Unless you’ve made a particularly good joke, it’s usually not good for the media to laugh during your press conferences! Political pundits jumped on the action as calculated and underhanded instead of proclaiming Huckabee as a role model of purity in politics. Mark Steyn even noted, “I’m calling a press conference at 9 a.m. to announce that I have a damaging Huckabee exit poll but, after much heart searching, I’ve decided not to release it.”
Almost as distressing as the reputation these ploys give to the public relations practice is the fact that the media couldn’t resist doing exactly what Huckabee wanted them to do – air his ad for free. Their laughter and much of the commentary on Huckabee’s press conference showed the media members knew they were being used to get Huckabee’s rebuttal out for free, and yet they did it anyway. If you or I tried this tactic (and please don’t EVER do it), reporters would be enraged and may never attend a press conference we called again. Yet they show in this case that they CAN be used for the very thing they profess to hate from public relations.
Since Huckabee won Iowa going away, I wonder if he will try a similar tactic in other states. He’s admitted he’s running the campaign on a low budget. If the free advertising worked in Iowa, why not in New Hampshire, South Carolina or Michigan? And if he does hold another press conference to get free coverage for an ad, will the media bite again? I was talking with a co-worker about why the media would fall into the trap that they so vehemently oppose. His response was, “I don’t think they can help themselves.” Keep your eyes open for a repeat performance of this tactic. Huckabee may be taking the P.T. Barnum approach with the media: “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.”
As for the rest of us in the business world, if you are ever tempted to try this type of ploy or if your clients or management encourages you to do it, resist! It may work in the political field where the media loves to create a fight, but for a business the costs in reputation and further relationships with the media are not worth the minimal potential for awareness you may receive. Present NEWS to the press, but leave the advertisements to the people who pay for space.
If any of you have a new year’s resolution to lose weight or eat less junk food or be more healthy, you’re on the wrong track. Check out the book “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think” by Dr. Brian Wansink. Aside from the great double entendre of the title, the book has tremendous insights, great research examples, and is a fun read. Check out Dr. Wansink’s Web site at http://www.mindlesseating.org. Watch some of the videos of Dr. Wansink to get a feel for his quirky style. He writes just like he talks!
Even if you’re not interested in losing weight, the book is full of examples of human behavior research. Dr. Wansink is one of the examples we use in the new book from VitalSmarts titled “Influencer: The Power to Change Anything.” (Full disclosure; this is the next class we’ll be promoting in mid-2008. You can get more about Influencer at www.influencerbook.com.) If human behavior interests you at all (and for those in public relations it should interest you greatly), check these books out. And if it’s weight loss or health you’re interested in, you’ll love the “Mindless Eating” approach. In essence, it’s all about creating an environment that allows you to eat less and be more healthy without thinking too hard about it. Great stuff.
Best wishes for a great start to 2008. I hope to hear from all of my former students and friends during the coming year. My new year’s resolution is to post a new blog message at least once a week! So look for more from me in 2008.
