You: Ready for Michael Moore?

Public Relations Quarterly, 2008 by Levy, Ronald N

It could happen to you. If someone like Michael Moore shows up at your company's front door with a camera crew - demanding to see your CEO, asking why you don't charge less for poor people, and why you can't spend less on PR and more on helping people in need - how you respond can change your organization's future and your own career.

You can be in hot water if the CEO says to reply he's not in - and if the camera crew can show his car in the parking space, then later show him slinking out the back door. Your company may not reveal that you were told to lie but say that you were wrong or uninformed - and that you are "no longer with the company."

It can be even worse - so you're in water that's not only hot but over your head - if you can't or won't answer whether you know your CEO's compensation, and how much the company made last year, and whether you think it would be terrible for each earnings number to be 25% lower so poor people "get more of a chance to live."

If you DO let in the hostile journalists, and it works out badly, management may ask WHY you let them in. If you DON'T let them in and the film or tape makes it look like you were afraid of the media, management may ask WHY you are employed and looked afraid of the media since aren't you "supposed to know" how to work with media people?

If you say anything, your general counsel may demand to know why you made a statement without management's clearance. If you say nothing, management may be incredulous that you didn't even deny personal knowledge of whether the CEO is guilty of A, B, C - and besides that is "well known" to be a chicken thief and a secretary-chaser. (Journalists have fun by asking non-responders increasingly ridiculous questions). Will you deny knowing - or refuse to say - whether your CEO is well known to be a chicken plucker?

Fortunately, there's a bright side: by preparing in advance, you can give answers so smooth and persuasive, journalists will admire your candor and grasp of the facts - and headhunters will start calling you with escalating inducements to change jobs.

Prepare to Answer

How can you start preparing answers when you don't even know what the hostile questions will be? By giving management the benefit of your PR experience that almost always, hostile questioners base their accusatory inquiries on the theory that your company is making too much on the public, endangering the public, or employing someone who has been guilty of theft, blasphemy, perversion, discrimination - or perhaps all that and more.

A common blunder in responding to such accusations - a blunder made even by very bright PR executives - is to quantify the peril by saying it's not as bad as some claim. But quantification is like an admission of guilt; the moment you quantify, the question becomes not WHETHER your organization has been guilty but how much guilt there has been!

To avoid the blunder, it's better to point out the positive opposite - that the company PROTECTS the public against high costs, PROTECTS the public through environmental protection and six other measures that you can name and document, and has supported all kinds of causes and committees to oppose exactly the kind of objectionable behavior being asked about. So the company presumes innocence for the time being but is investigating closely.

Statements can be written in advance of any camera crew arriving at the front door. You can not only have the facts ready but also photos, footage, letters of thanks and certificates of gratitude from public-service organizations your company has helped, clippings and TV tapes on what journalists have said about your good deeds, and copies of the "good deeds" section of the annual reports for the past five years.

Your lobbyist or general counsel may have testimony and exhibits that have been presented to a Congressional subcommittee. You may find excellent defensive material in company publications, industrial show exhibits and recruiting literature. You may even see that laudatory statements are made in the Congressional Record! (Any legislator can make "extended remarks" in the Congressional record so praise for your company can be there without anyone taking time to make the statement on the floor of the House or Senate.)

Very importantly, none of this does you any good unless you have it when you need it - and know what you have - so the time to prepare is now, before a dark angel casts a shadow (perhaps as in the case of Michael Moore a rather wide one) on your front door.

It's always possible that you'll be accused by what some would call crazies. A bright man from Procter & Gamble once phoned me - and emphasized that he was serious - with a problem that a group was actually accusing P&G of promoting devil worship since the corporate symbol called to mind (to members of the objecting group) the devil. But even when there is a ridiculous accusation, your ability to recite fluently the company's good deeds can show - and perhaps even convince sincere accusers - that your company is a corporate good guy, a public asset that does good works.