Credentials
Whether or not you agree with the decision, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure handled their news about severing relationships with Planned Parenthood about as poorly as possible. This is especially shocking because they are a grassroots organization that relies on the goodwill of those who support it. They just blew-up that goodwill with an enormous group of those supporters, perhaps for all time. This is an example of PR bungling of the highest magnitude. Here’s why:
One of the basic rules of communications strategies is: The person/organization that defines the issue has a major advantage in winning support for their side. To accept that reality takes nothing more than a keen sense of the obvious. Thus, one of the priorities of a communications strategy and campaign should be to do everything possible to define the issue and thereby control the story.
In the case of this news, The Komen people not only didn’t do as much as possible to define the issue, but they actually did nothing to define the issue. Although it has become a major topic on twitter et al, and despite the critical nature of the news, the Komen organization did not issue a news release about the ending of their relationship with Planned Parenthood. As of the morning of February 1, there still is no mention of this at their web page. There is no news of it in their web site section on “News.” All they have done, according to news reports, is convey the news to its 100 or so affiliates — and respond rather feebly to questions from the news media.
In other words, from the onset of a story that they could have defined and controlled they have been on the defense. As a result, this issue is seen not as being about the adherence to a Komen organization policy of not supporting organizations being investigated (as Planned Parenthood is), but as a question of whether the Komen organization “caved” to the political right wing.
There will be two consequences of this episode: 1) the Komen organization is going to lose a substantial amount of their support and money, and 2) they will become well-known by all future PR/communications students as one of the premier examples of everything a communications strategy should not be.
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In crisis after crisis, we see the same ritual routine. The offending organization (Komen,here) initially defends its behavior. Attacks mount and deepen.Then the O.O. (offending org.) backpedals and obfuscates. Attacks worsen. Then new damaging facts bleed out, and the O.O. reverses its position, abdicates its defense, retreats and apologizes.
Rob Brown
Prof., Communications Dept.
Salem State University; adj., Harvard Extension School
You can put that into some sort of formula:
Mistake + Attacks from others re: mistake = Defensive Reaction = Increased attacks of others = response and backpedaling and obfuscating = more attacks = more negative facts = correction of mistake, retreat and apology.
Looked at that way, you see a process that, in addition to being more damaging as to content, is time consuming. So, it seems that one of the things you want to do is to make that process as brief as possible. The best way, of course, is to avoid the mistake, but that’s impossible. So, the second best way is, once a mistake has been made correct it and apologize for it — even before the attacks begin.
But how do you do that? You have to stay focused on mistakes …. keep looking for them … and correct them fast. That focus on mistakes, however, creates (and requires) an organization that relishes mistakes as opportunities to improve … but most organizations (and people) want to hide from mistakes or not acknowledge them and thus the process continues until the ultimate outcome as you define it. So, then, I think the real moral of the story is: relish mistakes instead of being scared of them.
Cool.