Artful diplomacy and understanding can help push your agenda and protect your interests amid the maze of government interests. Unfortunately, there are times when common sense is commonly useless. All the facts may be on your side but, in the political world, pragmatism rules. Your natural inclination may be to dig your heels in and fight. But a moral victory won’t mean much if it engulfs you in a debilitating and costly struggle.
Richard S. Levick
That was the lesson learned by one company, a recognized leader in the business of rating how well companies in a specific industry group (we’ve masked the details) perform. Not long ago, this ratings company undertook a massive overhaul of its system in order to provide more scientific, accurate and reliable results. In other words, they strove for excellence. Justly proud, the company expected the revamped system to be uniformly greeted as a landmark advance in the science of rating performance.
This commentary is excerpted from the book, The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis, by Richard S. Levick and Charles Slack (Watershed Press, 2010).
No sooner was the new system unveiled than howls of protest erupted from some minority-owned companies because their performance ratings had suddenly dropped. The new system must be racially biased, they claimed. The charges shocked the ratings company. After all, the whole point of the revisions, the months and months of hard work and effort and expense, had been to make the ratings less subjective, less prone to racial or any other type of bias. The ratings company stood firm, offering to show any and all interested parties exactly how it had arrived at the new system.
The numbers obviously revealed some inherent weaknesses in the offended companies’ operations, they suggested. But the offended companies had no interest in such hows, whens and whys. Politically well-connected, they began making phone calls. In no time at all, the ratings firm heard from the state attorney general.
Once again, the company explained its metrics. Look at our research! Look at our numbers! Look at our results! Unfortunately, the AG was no more interested in the science behind the ratings than were the companies that were complaining. “Just let me know what you’re going to do about this,” he said. The AG wanted positive publicity for himself, but he also wanted the problem resolved before it became a sensitive political event.
A crisis management consultant convinced the ratings firm to play ball. The firm would offer to work directly with the minority companies on strategies to bring up their numbers while providing the attorney general with nine steps to help do so. The firm would also make a donation to a nonprofit organization providing educational opportunities for disadvantaged students interested in joining the industry.
Perhaps all this conciliatory action seemed unfair to the managers of the ratings company. But they were pragmatic withal, enough so to smooth out ruffled feathers and keep a dustup from developing into a real crisis. Politicians are the ultimate pragmatists. Choose your battles carefully.
Richard S. Levick, Esq., is the president and CEO of Levick Strategic Communications, a crisis and public affairs communications firm. He is the co-author of The Communicators: Leadership in the Age of Crisis and Stop the Presses: The Crisis & Litigation PR Desk Reference, and writes for Bulletproofblog. Levick is on the prestigious list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the Boardroom,” which is compiled by NACD Directorship magazine. Reach him at rlevick@levick.com.