Today’s lesson for tomorrow’s communicators
The world is changing ever faster. I’m old enough to remember waiting for checks to come in the mail. I remember faxing. I remember my first email, and wondering if I’d need a desktop computer for my first job. Yet more change has occurred in the past 5 years than what I experienced in the previous five decades. This change is occurring technologically, operationally and in the culture of communications.
Many organizations are adept at keeping up with, or at least in sight of, technological and operational changes and advancements. We quickly get used to GIS and we implement it on our operational planning. We discover that cell phones capture video, so we use them to film subject matter experts. We learn how to use virtual meeting technology so we use it for virtual press conferences. We’re (barely) managing the physical changes in our response communications tool belt.
But what about cultural changes brought about by same technology? What happens when someone moves our technology cheese? As an example of a communication cultural change, it is likely that your crisis communication plan and accompanying exercise objectives specify that you conduct a press conference. When information can be shared instantly using webcasts, live chats and video/photo libraries, what are you accomplishing with a physical press conference? Will anyone attend it, particularly if you don’t hold it ‘where the action is’? Your organization isn’t keeping up with cultural changes brought about by emergent technologies.
These changes in communication culture directly impact your ability to communicate even if you DO understand how to use modern platforms and technologies. Your risk is that, using new tools and technology, you can say the wrong things to the wrong people faster and more pervasively than ever before.
When communicators change their behavior to broadcast information, they also change stakeholders’ expectations of how to receive it. As an example, the ubiquity of cellphone cameras allows more people to capture images and video, as well as the ability to immediately broadcast it via different platforms, allowing any individual, event or incident to gain instant notoriety. We implicitly understand this. But the same capability changes both the photo takers and photo viewers. The ease of taking and broadcasting images increases the expectation that they will be taken, broadcasted and available to view – quickly. This is the new ‘media culture’ – instantaneous and pervasive imagery.
Have you considered the impact of the cultural changes that technology is forcing on your mission? You need to be ever-ready to identify what today’s lessons are for tomorrow’s communication needs. How do communicators spot and react to the changes that impact their world?
Gotta learn faster!
Spring of 2017 marked the realization by many Americans that airlines really don’t care about them. So it appeared, as cellphone videos of a passenger being forcibly dragged off an airliner became the news of the day. The airline in question was pilloried for its uncaring, greedy corporate policy and procedures that allowed an innocent passenger to be dragged off one of their planes. Images of this event were shared thousands of times, going viral before the airline could respond with any sort of initial statement. The poor communication responses led to further setbacks, and lack of communication sensitivities led to truly disastrous reputation management.
Four observations to this unfortunate incident:
- The obvious one: Airline booking policies need to change. What was reasonable before today’s level of real-time data isn’t reasonable any more. Even though contract language with every ticket sold allows airlines to select passengers for removal with no recourse, this isn’t going to work when everybody is a broadcaster. Facebook will accuse, prosecute and sentence you before your legal and communications teams are activated. Stakeholder sensitivities may not be apparent to security guard, but they should be clear to a communicator.
- The airline was blamed for actions out of their control. This may be less obvious, but it is event-critical. The airline was not the organization that committed the actions in question, but that didn’t matter one whit. They suffered the blame for others’ actions because their policies were the root cause of that action. In this case, aircraft crew apparently followed procedures perfectly; airport security was called to deal with a recalcitrant passenger, exactly according to policy. Every airline in the world should be asking their communicators to review procedures for this type of action, as well as any other human-touching activity.
- The responding airport security personnel followed procedures. Unfortunately, the procedure was never vetted through communicators; certainly not by anyone with any sensitivity to what enforcement actions look and feel like to the person being collared. Law enforcement agencies across the country are dealing with this dichotomy and all the body cameras in the world don’t help explain why physical force is being used. Policies need to include clear descriptions of what actions lead to which reactions. In this case, this airline, and all other airlines, suffered the consequence of poor response planning, preparation and training.
- Human nature had enormous impact on this event. This may be the most critical consideration for communicators. Think about it; there were scores of passengers on the aircraft, all who were perfectly content to watch a fellow passenger dragged off the airplane with attendant personal harm. Even as the attack occurred alongside them, not one person stood up to offer to leave instead. Worse than that, several people chose to film the encounter rather than offer their help, and to broadcast it with full self-righteousness. Any individual on the aircraft could have solved the problem by getting up and offering their seat instead. Nobody did. The new ‘media culture’ prevented it. What does this slice of human nature say about the likelihood that your own response efforts will be met with charitable intent?
What can a communicator learn from this event?
- Conduct a review of operational response plans to identify implicit communication risks.
- Map the likely affected stakeholders, possible outrage and the ability to broadcast it to the world.
- Correct operational response plans and prepare appropriate communication products to deal with an issue arising from an operationally perfect action.
- Make sure all response parties have the same level of sensitivity to public perception.
- Don’t expect any help from the people impacted by your event; human nature is to hunker down, not help out.
This event is an example of how early identification of a changing communication culture can lead to operational changes. Airlines need to require better passenger handling by airport security, overbooking policies can be changed and the process of asking for volunteers could be altered. As an example of this last point, by the time the air crew selected passengers at random for removal, every passenger on the plane had said ‘no’ multiple times: Passengers said ‘no’ to free tickets, paid hotel nights and meals, cash incentives and final pleas for consideration. Every ‘no’ increased the likelihood of security personnel coming on the plane.
You don’t get people to change their behavior under stress by asking them to reverse earlier decisions! As a professional communicator, you can help your organization learn methods to increase understanding and acceptance of your actions at every level, even on a crowded aircraft. Note: Proper attention and learning from this issue demonstrates that communication sensitivity should prompt an operational change. Communication matters!
Can your organization adapt to changing communication culture?
With this newfound focus on passenger mistreatment, several airlines were prominent in the news after this incident for their own customer service mishaps, each one for acting exactly as their operational policies specified. How long does it take to change? As demonstrated above, it can take more time than you have, even if you are looking and learning as you go. In this example, has any airline changed its booking policies since this customer service/reputation debacle?
What about your organization? Can you rapidly adapt to the changing communication culture? The cost of not learning can be high.