I thought we were the good guys
Today’s asymmetrical reputational risk environment can be baffling to non-communicators. We all expect that justice and truth prevail, that if we do the right thing everything will be all right. Corporations try to be good public citizens. Doctors try to save lives. Airlines try to keep to their schedules. Risk assessment and response planning is focused on identifying the events that can disrupt normal operations and creating response plans that minimize impact and quickly resume normal operations. If we do this right, everything will be all right, right? Then why does it seem so easy to become the bad guy?
Today’s always-on communication environment doesn’t accommodate our premise. We are no longer judged by an objective standard of ‘how we do’; while this provides an important and necessary measurement for responders and regulators, we are much more likely to be judged on why we did what we did, and how our actions impacted people, places and things.
Doing the right thing isn’t enough if people don’t agree with what you did. You can do what someone needed, yet become the bad guy because you didn’t do what someone wanted. As a result, well-meaning and conscientious responders are surprised when the public doesn’t reward their efforts with praise and admiration. They are baffled by the negative responses and attitudes they face. How can good response actions result in bad public opinion? Didn’t we do everything right?
The traditional response math (right facts + right actions = happy stakeholders) doesn’t seem to work today. 1+1 = 2 only if affected stakeholders perceive it to be so. Feelings, opinions or biases easily overrule facts. This changes how a response is perceived and how responders are treated. Communicators need to help response organizations understand that their communication product must change to match their stakeholder’s perceptions.
Facts are critical, but beyond the ‘what’, planners and responders must become adept at the ‘why’. Otherwise good people will be deemed to be bad people. Good response actions will be labeled as bad and public trust and acceptance will melt away.
Most response planning is built around the a standard set of objectives:
- Keep everyone safe – don’t conduct operations that increase the risk of injury to responders or the public
- Protect the environment
- Stop the incident – put out the fire, stop the flow, catch the bad guy, etc.
- Minimize disruption and damage – respond as aggressively as possible while not negating objective #1 (safety)
- Restore business operations as quickly as possible.
- Restore affected people, property and environment to their original state.
These are good and noble objectives. You will see a version of them in every exercise or event. Operators use these objectives as a response absolute – every decision revolves around them. Every response decision is weighed by whether the good of the action exceeds the harm of the action. Responders perform this response math all the time; the problem is that the public doesn’t. While responders assume that the right and reason of these objectives is obvious on all they do, stakeholders often take issue with them.
This dichotomy is real:
- In a major oil spill response, Unified Command made a decision to perform in-situ burning to destroy spilled oil far out to sea, before it could impact shorelines and their environments. This decision entailed painstaking consideration of whether the benefit (less oil on the beaches) exceeded the harm (incineration of all surface-dwelling animals). Burning commenced to great effect and responders congratulated themselves on making the best decision. Then the questions started; reports of marine wildlife being burned began circulating on the web and outrage began to mount. It required considerable effort by communicators to convince Unified Command that this was a real issue, and precious time and reputation was lost in the interim.
- While escorting a Native American longboat on a whale hunt, a US Coast Guard craft inadvertently ran over a protester on a personal watercraft. In the very public rescue operation that commenced, no stakeholders concerns were expressed for the safety of the protester, but many expressed concern for the whale.
We become the bad guy
Responder sensitivities often don’t match public sensitivities, and the discrepancy erodes public trust and acceptance. This exacerbates the preset, media-managed roles of public and responders. Even in responses with no obvious perpetrator, the public dialogue tends to become ‘us versus them’, with a victim, a villian and a hero. If your organization is designated as ‘Responsible Party’ you will inevitably be assigned the ‘villain’ role. The ‘victim’ is squishy, as each stakeholder group defines that role. In the case of the whale hunt mentioned above, the logical victim (the protester run over by the Coast Guard craft) wasn’t given that role – the whale was. In the in-situ burning decision, the villain was the RP, even though the decision to burn was a Unified Command decision. The victims were the marine wildlife, overriding any appreciation for how the actions taken were sparing other shoreline ‘victims’.
Remember, public sensitivities also won’t spare the nobility of responding agencies. Public agencies tend to assume the mantle of righteousness in responses, but are actually at greater risk than private companies. When something goes wrong, a villain must be assigned, and if any affected public sees an Agency’s actions as wrong, the ‘villain’ role will be quickly and firmly attached. Public agencies have little protection against an outraged public, because they answer to the public.
The antidote to being labeled the bad guy
What steps can you take to minimize the risk of being labeled the villian?
Don’t depend on facts
Responders live with facts and use facts to make decisions. They assume that facts will speak for themselves, but facts don’t. The critical information needed isn’t the ‘what’s’, it is the ‘whys’. Response decisions lead to self-evident actions. These actions don’t explain the responders’ decisions. Instead they serve as evidence to support or rebut a bias or supposition. Stakeholders who think their interests aren’t being considered will gather facts that support their point, using actual response actions to prove wrong decisions or motives.
Share response rationale
Communicators need to make sure that the rationale for key decisions is widely shared. The reasons for deciding on a course of action will almost always support the listed response objectives, and can serve to remind all stakeholders that response actions always reflect the best possible decisions, made by the most capable people. Messages prepared to explain why an action is being taken can also easily be augmented to address known or emerging issues or concerns. Specific stakeholders’ concerns can be addressed even while informing all stakeholders of an action or decision.
Don’t be passive
Finally, don’t passively accept public questioning of response motives; be ready to aggressively respond to it. While we all have a core belief that the right will be evident in the end, we ignore dissenting opinions at our peril. Public perception is a fungible commodity, and a loud voice accompanied by cherry-picked ‘proof’ can sway public opinion. It is more important to correct misinformation about response motives than it is to correct misinformation about response actions. Actual facts tend to correct themselves, but motives aren’t as quantifiable; a communicator has to carefully monitor what is being said about the character, competency or motive of responders, quickly and aggressively addressing misinformation about why specific actions are being taken. These rebuttals can always reinforce the key messaging that the best people are making the best decisions to mobilize the best resources for the best outcome.
Don’t be the bad guy
- Report response activities as quickly as they can be seen
- Share the ‘why’ of these actions, for understanding
- Tie the ‘why’ to specific emerging concerns and address individuals and groups concurrently
- Reinforce key objectives by tying them to response decisions
- Monitor and aggressively rebut any misinformation about the character, competency or motive of the response
- Use your rebuttal as an opportunity to reinforce key messaging