Have You Seen This Movie Before?

Intuition is the thing that’s often missing in communication. After all, if you have intuition about your audience (what they’ve experienced, their motivations, etc.) you can engage with them more effectively. And if you’re faced with a business decision about which you have to communicate, intuition is a guide that won’t let you down.

Call it a hunch – or, following your gut.

Intuition isn’t entirely learned, nor are you just born with it. As a journalist, I had to mentally process huge amounts of incoming data and decide what’s important to the reader or viewer and how to serve it up. It was important to be a quick study. 

It certainly helped that there was a lot of sameness in what we saw day-in and day-out: political scandals, shootings, fires, missing children, a hero’s homecoming. You felt like you’d seen this movie before.

Certainly much of my intuitive ability was cultivated and practiced in a newsroom. Intuition is one of the three pillars of Novaria Communication: intelligent, intuitive, influential. I help people communicate intelligently, with an intuition about their environment, and in a way that will influence their stakeholders. So imagine my delight when I read a piece in Huffington Post that says intuition is a highly valued attribute in the business world. The author explains how intuitive people cultivate and access their sense of “knowing.”

Intuition takes many forms, like knowing what’s going to happen next, like a feeling of déjà vu because you’ve experienced something so very similar before, like that comment you make and somebody else says “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

Intuition isn’t the only imperative for business and communications success, however. Some scenarios call for a more deliberate approach. I grew up in Missouri – the Show-Me State – where we took a little extra time and sized things up before coming to a conclusion. People say that Midwestern sensibility is a highly-valued attribute.

I think it comes down to being grounded. Experience helps. Having been through countless business transformations, counseling numerous executives and steering communications and engagement initiatives, I honestly believe that saying “there’s nothing new under the sun.” Yes, the people are different, the organizations are different, even innovation brings different ways of doing things, but the fundamental motivations are the same. People want the same outcomes – efficiency, ease, transparency, clarity, honesty.

Intuition tells me that. And it hasn’t failed me yet.

Today's question: How has intuition saved your bacon?

Don't Apologize Unless You Mean It

I stabbed a kid once.

We were cleaning gear from a Boy Scout campout in the Methodist church kitchen and Jon Perkins and I got to horsing around, at which point I picked up a butcher knife and pretended to terrorize him, chasing him around the room. He stopped short and the blade sank about a half-inch deep into the skin between his shoulder blades. I was mortified, and probably apologized a dozen times (breathlessly, I might add) as the Scoutmaster pondered disciplinary action.

Now, that incident made an impression on me and I never stabbed anyone again. But most apologies pass our lips and are quickly forgotten. You probably apologize to a spouse or close family member several times a week, but can you remember the situation?

My wife and I have a solid marriage of 31 years. But we have a fundamental disagreement about apologies. I will admit I’m the flawed one. I want to apologize and move on; she wants me to apologize, then demonstrate over time how I’m working to change my ways. I want the quick closure an apology brings. Check the box and move on. She has feelings (of course) and isn’t easily placated by the utterance of a few words in a solicitous tone of voice.

When it comes to politicians, CEOs, athletes and celebrities, the public seems to favor my wife’s point of view. A simple spoken apology is inadequate; we are loathe to forgive unless the person backs it up with action.

My personal favorite is “I’m sorry if I offended anyone.” Seriously, you’re going to make it conditional?

These forms of mea culpa do nothing more than provoke further outrage. Instead of dousing the fire with water, they add gasoline:

• Lance Armstrong apologized, but failed to answer the question “Did you dope?” Grade: F.
• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie apologized multiple times, but has it changed anything? Grade: D-.
• Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel apologized for allowing hackers to steal our personal data. I'm willing to give him an “Incomplete” because it’s too early to tell how effective the company’s remediation will be, and more will surely come out during litigation.

These tepid apologies fail to score points with the public, yes. But, they also offer a lesson of how not to do it.

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Dov Seidman are putting the offenders under the microscope. Sorkin, a New York Times writer and Seidman, an advisor to companies on how to operate “in a principled and profitable way,” have declared a moratorium on apologies until we get it right. No more apologies, they say, until public figures and their PR people accompany every apology with an explanation of the steps taken to correct the problem.

They’ve asked us (yes, you and me) to make a note next time we hear a public apology and check back over time to see if the person truly made good on their word. They’ve even suggested a “time out” (I know, it sounds like CEOs are children), a go-to-your-corner and think about it before you issue another apology.

You can read more about it here and here. Let’s see if the increased public scrutiny works.

My advice to a client is: Your apology has to be sincere. And, you’d better have a three-, four- or five-point plan for change and start acting on it. You can even regain lost credibility down the road by periodically pointing out the positive change you’ve made – whether it’s treating workers better, restoring impeccable accounting or resolving customer complaints.

To Jon Perkins, wherever you are: I’m glad that knife in the back didn’t damage our relationship. I can’t comment, however, on which is worse: a real knife in the back or a figurative one.

You're selling ... all the time

Reputation means different things to different people.

Growing up, I would hear my parents talking about someone’s reputation – like Dick Miller, who owned the Rexall drug store downtown. He had a great reputation, by the way - generally regarded as the go-to for everything from prescription service to chocolate malts.

Later – in high school – I heard whispered conversations about a fellow teenager with a “checkered” reputation. Wonder how he got that?

In college, it was all about the reputation of your school – party school, nerd factory or springboard to a lucrative banking career?

Quickly catapulted into the world of full-time employment, I was supporting myself and continually having to make purchasing decisions. Whether I realized it or not, the reputation of the product factored into those decisions.

My first job out of journalism school was at a TV station, and my earliest encounters with reputation in a business sense were strategy sessions attended by members of the news staff, sales staff and management. To attract more viewers to our newscasts we needed to know who we were and who our competitors were: the CBS affiliate had its finger on the pulse of the community and was the most pleasing to watch, while the NBC affiliate tried to look and act important but often came off as sophomoric. As the ABC station, we were the “issues” station; we hoped viewers would get something of value from our reporting ("news you can use"). So, we capitalized on our strengths and added a dash of personality because we knew our viewership would give us permission to be human. Our news director said we should be perceived as "friendly professionals." In a few years, the station went from #3 to #1 in the ratings.
 
The lesson is  know yourself in order to succeed. Ignore your reputation at your own peril.

There’s a time and a season for reputation management: all the time and in every season. My dad, a stockbroker, once told me “You’re always selling yourself.” Too bad he died when I was only 12; I could have used more of that sage wisdom over the years.

He was right. Everything that breathes has a reputation. You have one, I have one. Our dog, Bella, has one – based on her loving disposition and temperament. It’s our most precious asset and if it should be compromised in any way, we can find ourselves in trouble. Or out on the street.

Reputation is as old as time and new as the latest celebrity blowup. Timeless, yes. Trivial, no.

Companies are wise to protect and defend their reputations. There are a multitude of ways to do it and it’s not easy. That’s why I love the pursuit, and I’ll be writing about it in this space.

Keep it honest, open and live with integrity. And I’ll talk to you soon.