A communicator told me of a large company that had a fairly significant event at a facility. The event was visible to neighbors who observed it. It happened in the evening and the first tweet went out within a couple minutes of the event occurring. The tweet was picked up by the nearest large city news media, which retweeted it, followed up and started reporting. The media reports and now additional neighbor tweets were noted by many, and in about five hours there were several million retweets -- all from a fairly minor event. The company headquarters, located in a different part of the country, took command of communications, struggled to get info from the facility and put out a statement several hours after the event first occurred. Nothing new here, right? Except they were quite proud and satisfied with their effort. If they had been questioned about the delay and the millions who heard from others before them, they would likely explain the difficulties they had in getting information, securing approvals, making sure they got it right and all that. When challenged on the delay, they would have said, "Yeah, but you don't know what we..."
Patrice Cloutier found this interesting blog that includes lengthy interviews with various PIOs involved in the recent Napa, Calif., earthquake. As Chief Bill Boyd points out, the PIOs did a great job in trying circumstances. Yet, they seemed to consider the hours it took to travel to their assigned locations, set up equipment and get the initial message out to be acceptable. I couldn't agree more with Boyd when he suggests that there are a whole number of ways available today to shorten the time from initial notification to first messages. As brave and professional as these PIOs were under the circumstances, they demonstrated an inside perspective, apparently not understanding that with an outside perspective they would see that that delay was very damaging.
Two clients I've been working with lately are having trouble gaining an outside perspective. They read the stories in the papers involving them, see how the reporters got it wrong, and figure that the reading public will see through the negatives and give them a pass. It just doesn't work that way.
As a consultant for many years I ran into the "yeah, but" response a lot. You need to make this change. "Yeah, but you don't understand what I'm dealing with." You need to communicate this message. "Yeah, but you don't know what it looks like from here." You need to get a message out quickly or let everyone else speak for you. "Yeah, but you don't know how many hoops we have to go through, or how much other work we have to do, or how our budgets won't let us."
The yeah buts are true and real. But does it matter? Ultimately it is the public, those outside your agency or organization who are the judges. It is their opinion of you that makes your reputation. Leaders need to remember that those working for you are more concerned about keeping their jobs and that means they naturally have an inside perspective -- what their bosses think matters most. That's why bosses have to assume the responsibility of making certain someone keeps an outside perspective. Someone needs to be continually monitoring what those outside are seeing, how they are responding, and how their opinion of the organization is being affected.
