Here’s an example of how policy without perspective can ruin your reputation, courtesy of the Vermilion Parish School Board, in Louisiana. Take your pick of the following headlines:
Watch and read KATC’s full coverage of the Vermilion teacher incident
- “He did exactly what he was hired to do. He followed the procedures completely.”
Teacher handcuff video leads to death threats, investigation
- “His job is to make sure we have an orderly meeting,” Fontana said. “He knows what the law is. He knows what our policy is…The officer did exactly what he is supposed to do.”
Teacher handcuffed, arrested after questioning school board about superintendent’s contract
- School Board President Anthony Fontana said in an interview that the security officer did nothing wrong. “He was just doing his job,” he said.
YouTube carries a video of the incident:
Communicators, providing perspective is our job.
At the end of the day, a local School Board issue became a national issue. Why? Because policy was followed to the letter. What went wrong? Nobody considered the public repercussions from perfectly enforced policy.
Any policy that touches the public needs to be carefully reviewed to ensure that it accomplishes the desired result. In this case, the School Board’s policy to keep order at public meetings should have been reviewed to be sure that enforcement wouldn’t sabotage overall Board objectives.
School Boards and their elected/appointed officials depend on public support to accomplish their mission-critical objectives. They depend a harmonious relationship with dedicated teachers. They depend on qualified leadership. In this event, enforcing policy at a meeting has sabotaged all these relationships.
Only communicators can provide perspective
Only communicators are used to living on ‘the outside’. We deal with stakeholders every day, so we are the ones who can provide perspective. One of our roles within our organizations is to protect policy makers on ‘the inside’ from the people on ‘the outside’. But this doesn’t mean that our ‘insiders’ can set policies or procedures that impact the ‘outsiders’ without careful review. And we are the ones who need to review them, using our ‘outside’ perspective.
In this event, all the negative national attention was the result of a policy to have law enforcement officials remove people from public meetings. Due to lack of proper perspective in casting the policies, the Vermilion Parish School Board’s local issue about the Superintendent’s compensation has become a negative national story.
- Tone deaf policy and enforcement has led to death threats and national scrutiny.
- Media is noting every negative fact of this issue, from apparent sexism to avoidance of media calls.
- Teachers are outraged. The Louisiana Association of Educators has denounced the actions.
- The public who matter to this School Board – local parents and voters – are embarrassed and disturbed
- A single action in accordance with policy has alienated virtually every stakeholder group
What about policies of your organization? How do you know what to look for?
- Any policy that leads to public impact should be carefully examined.
- Use ‘the outside’ perspective to review proscribed actions.
- Modify policies or procedures to prevent public outrage.
- If policies or procedures can’t be changed for safety reasons, be ready to immediately explain and defend them.
What does hindsight suggest in this case?
- Removing people from public meetings is fraught with consequences – none positive.
- Pervasive video capability ensures that any physical actions taken will be portrayed in the worst possible light
- Video is capturing expressions of disapproval or shock from bystanders as well – your incident’s own Greek chorus
- A trained moderator could have acknowledged concerns and moved on to other petitioners
- At worst, the meeting could have been adjourned – a local issue but not a national one!
What would YOU do? Leave a comment below!
This issue is further examined in my post: A brave new world – lessons for communications