Category Archives: public relations

Government Relations, public relations

Etiquette – Things You Learned in Kindergarten

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Over the years, I have  helped many clients prepare for their first meeting with a legislator. I have seen presidents of national and multinational corporations, men with billion dollar budgets and thousands of employees break out in a sweat at the thought of presenting their organization’s perspective to a Minister.  I have also had clients whose complete lack of regard for the time and opportunity afforded to them by a meeting with a Minister come close to derailing their corporate objectives before they had even presented them.

In one particularly memorable case, my client who had been out at meetings with members of parliament (MPs) all morning called a minister’s office and asked the assistant to organize a lunch in time for their arrival since they were falling behind schedule. Given that the assistant in question worked for the Minister of Finance it’s fair to say that she had other things too attend to that morning, not the least of which were all of the other visitors waiting to meet the minister. She didn’t call a caterer, she called me.

When people told me government relations was exciting, I was skeptical. I had worked in politics for years and met plenty of lobbyists. While the issues were interesting and the policy solutions often ingenious, the hours were long and moving regulations or legislation is often tedious. Unless it was an election night, exciting is not how I would have described most political action. However, when my day was unexpectedly interrupted by a an outraged assistant previously known for her patience under fire, my heart rate might have picked up. There is definitely a certain amount of drama associated with trying to soothe an angry assistant, while madly pantomiming to your own assistant to call the florist and send a massive bouquet of flowers BEFORE your oblivious client gets there.

Although the client in question headed up a multi-national who could make the nation’s GDP drop when they had a strike, they were still people dealing with people. The cost of the flowers and my time while I sorted out their faux pas was negligible, but that little moment cost them a good deal of credibility. For a large corporation if you perform enough small blunders the cost to your reputation starts to take a tremendous financial toll. Whether you’re annoying a minister’s assistant or frustrating a customer, bad news spreads quickly. Social media means it spreads at the speed of a key stroke.The customer/stakeholder/follower is not always right, but they always deserve to be treated with respect.

Some Simple Tips To Keep In Mind

  • Consider how you might feel if positions were reversed.
  • Treat people the way you want your favorite human treated.
  • Respect the time of the people you are meeting with, including the time of their staff.
  • If you are going to be late, give them a heads up.
  • If you are going to be early, try to avoid their office unless you have no choice and then stay out of their way.
  • Most importantly, play nice.
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Communications, public relations

Random Acts Of Branding

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 Random Acts of Branding

What happens if everyone in an organization decides to engage in branding activities without first engaging in an internal conversation? This question prompted an extended conversation with my friend Janet MacLeod, who like me, is a communications professional. This post is the consequence of that discussion and so our joint offering.

So what happens when an organization starts to perform random acts of branding? A commercial in one area, a public relations program somewhere else.  Essentially, a variety of initiatives delivered over time that are unrelated but intended to improve profile or set a tone for services? Even if the initiatives aren’t identical, they would at least get attention right? Raise the profile of the organization and if luck is with the organization, it might even result in a viral moment.  It’s possible that many of those individuals will have a brilliant idea…right.  Who are we kidding? First of all, there aren’t that many geniuses and second, if you have different people doing their own “thing” with a brand, then that probably means that they have no communications experience.  Even a mediocre communicator understands the benefit of being consistent.  A good communicator would say that inconsistencies in branding eventually result in diminishing the brand and yet so many organizations allow their brand to be shuttled about with little regard. Despite what you might think, it isn’t just the little organizations who do this either. Unless you are an organization that sells products like soda or toilet paper, items that live and die based on brand, you may not fully understand the strength and impact of brand.

Too often the description of a corporate brand can sound like little more than jargon to employees. And really, it’s often treated as a descriptive phrase that illustrates what corporate leaders would like employees, clients or customers to think and feel about a company. The thing is, brand is a pretty loaded word. It represents a concept that seems to mean a multitude of things to people and can also mean next to nothing. Brand is color, it’s a logo, it’s a font, it’s how you are perceived, how you deliver service and how your products perform.  It’s the feeling the public gets when your name is mentioned. It’s the choices that people make to use or not use your offering.

Brand is the unique features that distinguish one organization from another – it may be the words used, the procedures you follow and most likely it is a combination of all these things.  Brand becomes the things people see, hear, feel, and touch so that a perception or idea develops about what can (and should) be expected of the organization. The authentic feelings and emotions that are triggered by brand – whether factual or not – become the reality. In effect, the brand is the organization.

Since internal activities drive the brand exhibited and understood outwardly, it is concerning (to say the least) when those activities lack cohesion. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, companies sometimes “run with scissors” and become susceptible to brand breakdown. Change is often the trigger. Whether it comes as a result of shifts in culture, technology, finances, staff turn- over or simply poor strategy, changes that are poorly executed or poorly communicated, can lead to dysfunction and can put a huge dent in what had been a perfectly fine brand.

A living example is BlackBerry. It used to be RIM or Research in Motion. It was Canada’s technology darling. People loved it, trusted it, and expected good things from it. Then it changed. It went into the consumer marketplace (and grew itself accordingly). But soon it went from being the industry leader, to being perceived as the industry follower. In truth, it was still making reliable, secure devices, but because it didn’t do what the iPhone did, it was perceived as being a poorer product. BlackBerry lost momentum. Investors stopped coming, people stopped buying the product. Layoffs ensued.

So although the quality of the actual product had not altered the perception of the product had to the point that the brand was seen as waning.  The changes that impacted BlackBerry happened in the market, yet organizations often inflict negative shifts in perception on themselves by ignoring or poorly attending to their brand. Brand is a powerful device. It needs care and attention and there should be nothing random about it.

What do you think about branding?  Do you have favorite products you buy because of their brand?  Do you have a favorite beer, pop or paper towel? Do you know what your own brand is? 

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Communications, public relations

Ask for the Order

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Just Ask - Commstorm

Guest Post by Diana Marinova

Ask for the order or what lessons about communication the lady in the supermarket taught me. Honoring Debra’s one year anniversary of blogging, I decided to share a little story from few months ago. It’s a very ordinary every day story but put in the right context and perspective, we can learn a lot about communication from it.

The story

One cloudy morning, I went to the supermarket because I ran out of coffee. Maybe it’s good to know (in advance) that I am not a morning person and I definitely hate going to the supermarket. So, I entered the supermarket. I looked around (I was on a vacation so I didn’t quite know that particular supermarket). I found the coffee, took my brand and went to the cash register.

The lady looked at me, saw the coffee, ran it through the bar code reader and said to me: “We have a new brand of biscuits in the store. I tried them this morning and they are delicious! And at a promotional rate, too! Would you like to try them?”

I stood there for a moment thinking – well, yeah, who doesn’t like a nice chocolate treat with their coffee – so I nodded affirmatively. She ran the biscuits through the bar code reader, too. Then she just took out from a little fridge beside her a small cartoon of milk and said: “And you gotta try both the coffee and the biscuits with this milk! It’s not at a discounted rate but it sure will make your day if you have your morning coffee and biscuits with it!” – and she winked at me – LOL

I laughed and I felt good – it’s not every day that someone winks at you the old fashion way, eh? Besides, she did make me smile although I hadn’t had my coffee yet… So I ended up buying both the milk and the biscuits along with the coffee that I went for in the first place… and an ice-cream – because I was feeling good 😉

Ask for the order, always: The customer may or may not buy something. But if you ask them to, politely and with a hint of humor, they are more likely to!

Don’t be shy. Don’t be rude. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t be pushy. Be yourself and ask for   the order genuinely – as if you are talking to a friend and making a personal recommendation regardless what the answer might be.

Share the information you have: Being a non-morning hating-the-supermarket customer, no way could I have noticed there are cookies at a discounted rate; or a small carton of milk beside the cashier. And I definitely had no way of knowing the brand of biscuits is new in that particular store. So, unless the lady at the cash register told me all that, there was no way for me to make a decision to purchase anything beside the coffee I went there for.

Don’t assume the customer knows something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t care. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want to be bothered. Well, basically – don’t assume anything. Assumptions are your enemy when it comes to communication (and sales). Just share the information you have and deem important. I will cite here Debra – “information shared is power squared” 😉

Connect on a personal level: As hard as it may sound, it really isn’t. In my story – the lady in the supermarket winked at me! It was unexpected; it was funny; it was personal – it definitely helped me like her and purchase all she had to offer.

Connecting on a personal level doesn’t mean you have to know the person you are dealing with. It means being human; being yourself; being honest and forthcoming; being creative; being funny sometimes. Connecting on a personal level has a lot to do with being genuinely interested in what’s going around you. More importantly, it means helping the other party, even if they don’t know they need help – and just because you can!

Thank you, Debra, for hosting my story on your blog! And to all of you, dear readers – tell us in the comments –

What else did you learn about communications from my story?

Diana Marinova is a freelance marketing consultant and writes a wonderful bog providing smart and practical advice for freelancers and anyone in the business world who has clients or is a client.

Cafe con galleta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Communications, public relations

Going Viral, It’s As Easy As 1,2,3

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If you were tasked with the job of making an organisation’s message go viral, what would you do? Where would you start? I was wondering just that the other day, it’s something I think all marketing professionals wonder about and we’d all like to see at least one campaign go crazy (or if we’re honest, all of our campaigns) but the truth is, the fastest way to have a campaign go viral is to take your time. 

There is nothing I find so frustrating as people talking about delivering a social media campaign without planning, investment or consideration.  It makes me groan and my frustration grows because it is based on a misconception that often plagues communications and marketing professionals, the idea that social media is easy and that success is just around the corner if only the marketing manager knew what they were doing.

The truth is successful social media campaigns rely on the same three things that successful traditional media campaigns required. They just happen to be three difficult things for most businesses to deliver. Let’s look at some campaigns that have worked and try to determine what might have pushed them from just viewable to viral.

Who Gives – Humour and the Unexpected

This little gem doesn’t hit the really BIG numbers, but for a relatively inexpensive charitable endeavor, it has managed to capture a fair bit of attention with over 10,500 views and earned traditional media coverage as well. What’s it’s most notable selling feature? A rabbi in a dress of course.

This charity video poses the question, “Who gives?” and then shows Rabbi Avrohom Zeidman performing as a series of characters who run through every imaginable excuse for not giving. Within one week of being posted the 2-minute video played well over 7000 times.

Blendtec – Something You Always Wanted To Do

Blendtec’s, video campaign poses the question, will it blend? What follows is a series of ridiculous items that the blender is challenged to blend. These YouTube posted videos take the premise set out in the old Ginsu knives commercials and add power and imagination. Smartphones, lighters, boron steel and super glue are all put to the test. These videos have gotten millions of views and make up the backbone of Blendtec’s advertising campaign.  The geek factor is high, but you can’t look away.

Old Spice – Surreal and Funny

The Old Spice commercials are among my favourites.  These beauties were popular on television, but they exploded on YouTube with each video getting millions of views.

Not only do the videos use humour to deliver their message, but as the main character moves smoothly from one ridiculous accomplishment to another the viewer is left laughing and a little bewildered.  The best part of these ads is that, like the Axe deodorant ads, they appeal to a younger demographic making them fodder for shares, likes, posts, memes, and quotes.

Although these campaigns each achieved different levels of popularity they do share some things in common. They are quirky, they show imagination and they have broad appeal for a younger demographic. The reality is that for most businesses a successful social media campaign sits closer to the first than the second example, a million views is far from the norm. Even with the accessibility afforded by social media, generating the kind of widespread attention, it takes to be massively popular generally means that you are playing off of traditional media sources, as well as, social media.

Going viral relies on having at least two of the following factors in place, time, money, and creativity. If you don’t have the money, then you definitely need to take your time and show creativity. One social media king we can learn from is a young man originally from Sweden who goes by the name, PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg). He usually posts two videos a day and is also active on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. He has more than 56 million subscribers on YouTube, and every video he posts generates millions of views. He’s funny,  always irreverent, unexpected, creative, appealing to a younger demographic and most importantly, he is very, very dedicated. He started posting videos in 2009, but it was not until 2012 that he really hit his stride.

Have you ever had a campaign or post go crazy? Do you have any viral ads or videos that you love? What do you think it takes to make a campaign go viral?

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Internal Communications, public relations

Saturday Morning Chit Chat, Laugh it up…at work

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Laugh it up...at work

I like to laugh. I like to laugh a lot, and I have one of those laughs that you can hear down the street.  I’ve been told it is infectious. Actually, my husband was once told by new neighbours that they loved his wife’s laugh.  They could hear it through their closed windows in the winter.

My laughter is an intrinsic part of me. I can’t express myself without it showing up sooner or later. So you can imagine that when I’m at work, that laughter is still in play. It’s what helps me get closer to people, it helps me to engage. Not surprisingly, it’s easier to know someone when you laugh with them. Yeah, I can focus.  I’ve been known to start the first conversation of the day by asking about a project and then remembering to say good morning and take off my coat, but I always go back to laughing.  One of my old bosses claimed he could hear me laughing at the building’s entrance, down the corridor, four floors below. He was unimpressed, I think he underestimated the echo effect of elevator shafts.

Sometimes, when laughter makes it’s way into conversations about work there is the impression that a professional atmosphere doesn’t include a sense of humour. I always wonder why. Are you working with humans? Humans don’t wear one emotion indefinitely and we spend more time at work than we do in almost any other endeavour.  I’m not suggesting becoming the office goof or showing disrespect, just that you need to have a release valve at work, the same way that you do anywhere. Arguably, the more stressful your job, the more often you should look for humour as a release.  That pent up energy has to go somewhere and too often anger is the outcome.

I work for an amazing home care organization.  We have thousands of nurses, personal support workers and volunteers moving in and out of private homes all day long, every day.  You can imagine that with that much interaction, I periodically get called in because situations have escalated into potential media problems. They aren’t always funny, in fact, they rarely are and they can ratchet up the tension quickly.  So calm and humour are often the tools that I use to diffuse a situation. Again, because it bares repeating, appropriate humour.

There are other times when the situation is so strange or silly that the only thing you can do is laugh.  A while back one of our sites contacted me when the son of a client threatened to go to the media because our nurse refused to visit his mother. She refused because every time she went, the son, a man in his thirties, would be dressed in nothing but his underwear.  Eventually the nurse was so unnerved by the man’s near nudity (remember, he’s not the client) that she finally put her foot down and refused to go unless he put on some pants during her visits.

When the site contacted me to share this problem there was an awkward silence. I was on the line with a very concerned district executive director and an equally serious director of risk. Eventually I burst out laughing, then said, “Let him go to the media. It will be the best coverage we’ve ever had.  The public will get a chance to see how difficult the job of our front line workers is.”

My reaction was unanticipated by my colleagues, but it diffused the tension that was building and gave a little perspective. Not all situations are worth a laugh, but sometimes you have to relax and release. The Wall Street Journal recently carried a great article on the value of humour at a work. In it they not only suggest it’s a good idea but share some of the science behind why.  Notably, being funny makes you seem smarter, employers like people with a sense of humour, it builds rapport and when you laugh it stimulates the same part of your brain that reacts when you get a big bonus check.  Not bad for a giggle, so laugh it up.

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Communications, public relations

8 Tips On What To Do In A Communications Crisis And 9 Tips On What Not To Do

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Last updated August 2017

17 tips for managing crisis communications

Every year I watch in amazement as a few organizations and a few celebrities stumble into a communications crisis in the media.  My amazement isn’t over the incidents that triggered the crisis’, though many of them would certainly give you pause, but rather over the way the crisis’ is managed.

The reaction from the train company, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Canada Co. (MMA) after their runaway train caused a massive explosion that devastated the town of Lac-Megantic in 2013 was shocking in its ineptitude. As everyone from the Canadian Prime Minister to Quebec’s Premier rushed to the scene to express their condolences, the CEO from MMA was notably absent. Almost off the bat, the company started to point fingers of blame, particularly at the local fire department and although they softened their tone in subsequent communications, perceptions were set.  They followed through by being slow in providing financial support and to cap their self-destructive public relations campaign, the CEO suggested that he too was a victim of the disaster.

Right around the same time MMA was self-destructing, Paula Deen, a popular television chef, was accused of racism. She did an amazing job of illustrating why saying you’re sorry is easier and smarter than saying, “I am what I am.”

In a similar vein,  Anthony Weiner demonstrated how not to engage the press. At the risk of stating the obvious, if you’re in politics and your name is Weiner, don’t tweet pictures of your wiener. It’s like gold to the late night hosts and catnip to the press. If you do share your pictures of your wiener and you are later asked to identify it, be prepared to identify it or don’t, but be prepared to be asked.

These are just three stories, but the airlines, politicians and celebrities supply us with more on a regular basis. Given the number of stories that play out every year, it might be useful to share what to do, as well as, what not to do in a communications crisis. True crises have several elements in common, any one of which, if handled poorly, can disrupt or even destroy your best attempts at managing the situation effectively, not to mention the lasting damage that can be done to your reputation.

What to do

  1. Be Honest: If you are at fault, there needs to be an outward acknowledgement of the error. Excuses and self-serving messages will only further undermine public confidence.
  2. Be Coordinated: You need to be well organized during a crisis.  This means planning and identifying whom you want on your crisis team in advance. The bigger the crisis, the more senior the spokesperson.
  3. Provide Explanation: Explain what happened and why it happened, even if what happened is embarrassing. If you’re not sure, share what you can.
  4. Give Support: Everything said should be spoken from the perspective of those injured.  Language should be plain and easily understood.
  5. Be Apologetic: Don’t stop being apologetic for what happened.  This is the last place ego needs to show up. If you are not personally involved in the incident, act as though you are or that someone you know has been affected. This is not the time to introduce “but” to your language.
  6. Consult: Engage experts, victims and relevant stakeholders to help you resolve the problem.  Make sure there is no possibility of bias in the choices you have made. Make sure that victims are given a voice.
  7. Promise: Promise not to have the same or similar incidents happen in the future. Make sure that the public understands that you have set a zero tolerance policy internally.
  8. Restitution:  This is probably the most difficult to commit to because of economic restraints, nevertheless the cost of not putting victim’s needs first and foremost will be by far more costly.

What not to do

  1. Show condescension or arrogance.
  2. Demonstrate a lack of concern or consideration.
  3. Ignore or minimize the impact on victims or their needs.
  4. Blame others or not take responsibility.
  5. Use inconsiderate or thoughtless language.
  6. Be inconsistent.
  7. Be unprepared.
  8. Miss opportunities to communicate with victims or other stakeholders.
  9. Create victim confusion.

Have you ever had to manage through a crisis?  Do you think you would be good in one?

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Communications, Government Relations, Internal Communications, public relations

Have We Run Out Of Stories?

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Have we run out of stories
Have we run out of new stories?

Vulture recently posted an article about the demise of the blockbuster. In it, Gilbert Cruz itemizes all that’s wrong with Hollywood’s blockbuster system from a lack of imagination to the high cost of production.  It seems our preoccupation with rehashing old stories in a spectacularly expensive way is beginning to wear thin. The article prompted me to ask the question, have we run out of stories? I wondered because I regularly watch movies and television with half an eye and yet follow the story line with no challenge. It may be because I’m an avid reader but it’s more likely that the same stories are often retold. It makes you wonder if Christopher Booker didn’t have it right when he proposed there were only seven stories in the world and they were continuously being retold.

Cover of "Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell ...
Cover of Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories

If you are not familiar with his perspective, in his book, “The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories” he suggests that there are only seven stories and they are:

  • overcoming the monster;
  • rags to riches;
  • the quest;
  • voyage and return;
  • comedy;
  • tragedy and
  • rebirth.

He falls into some interesting traps based on his own paradigm and at times seems to counter his own argument, but that aside, if his basic theory is correct, it poses a conundrum for communicators. The business of communications is the telling of stories.  We capture the attention of our audiences by telling them well. Whether we take them by surprise, intrigue or mystify them, we need to be clever and original. That becomes increasingly challenging if we believe we have to choose from a limited number of options. While Booker’s ideas are interesting and Hollywood’s challenges perplexing, I don’t think there are a limited number of stories. That would be the same as saying there are limits on our imagination.

I am reinforced in my belief through my work. As I go about the business of my job, I encounter an endless array of stories. In fact, I have encountered so many good stories during my career that my biggest challenge is finding the time to tell them.  When I worked with pharmacists, I was constantly amazed at the stories that would emerge when they were relaxed and reflective. They told amazing stores, funny, sad, bizarre and poignant ones. The one about the pharmacist who leaves her shop in the middle of the day because one of her clients needs to get home from the hospital and she’s the only one who can pick her up.  Then there was the pharmacist who made house calls out to the country and regularly got chased by an unfriendly turkey. In my current job, it’s the Meals on Wheels volunteer who doesn’t just leave the food at the door when no one answers, but investigates and saves the life of a client in the midst of a medical emergency.

Imagine how the conversation went the next time the meals on wheels program coordinator had to explain that the program was an important security check for seniors and shut-ins, not just a necessary food service.  Imagine what that story did to increase the number of volunteers the program receives. What do you think I might have said when an interest group leader suggested that pharmacists just counted pills? Stories provide us with powerful ammunition. They allow us to illustrate the complex in accessible ways and they allow us to inspire others to action.

The stories I hear are endless and I don’t think that it’s a reflection of the health sector, I think all sectors have great stories to tell, but someone has to choose to tell them. We haven’t run out of good tales, we just stopped looking in the right places for them and listening when we do find them. One of the best parts of my job is to hear those stories. I sometimes joke that it’s a good week if I cry once, a great week if I cry more than once.  That’s the power of a good story. It moves you and makes you think about the world in a different way.

As communicators, we all need to look for the story that illustrates our objectives, our brand and our aspirations. Clever tag lines, corporate colors and advertising dollars are worthless without the stories.

Have you ever used a story to make a point?  Has a story moved you when you thought you were resolved?

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Communications, public relations

The Tool For Making The Perfect Elevator Pitch

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I’ve been looking for an automated pitch generator ever since Harvard removed their automatic pitch maker. I’ve finally found one at Buzzuka. OK, it’s not perfect, you actually need a human being and some passion for that, but what it does nicely is put you into the right frame of mind and get you to a starting point. Pitcherific also provides a useful framework to get you started on (and practising) your pitch.

Both of these tools help with the structure of a pitch but they won’t make the pitch for you.  You still need to do some homework.

Know Your Audience: There is little value in creating a pitch that delivers perfectly what you want but has no resonance with your audience. You’re not pitching yourself. You’re also not going to want to deliver the same message regardless of who you’re speaking to.

Be brief and clear: It seems like an obvious statement, but being succinct does not mean become cryptic. You need to be brief and clear. Your great-aunt Petunia and your eight-year-old nephew should be able to understand it.

Answer Essential Questions:  If the response to your pitch is, huh? You haven’t been clear enough. Make sure that your audience knows exactly what you want from them and that you answer that age-old question, “What’s in it for me?”

No Pick-Up Lines: If you use a line like, “Heaven must be missing an investor angel because you’re here with me right now.” Not only will you come off as cheesy, but also cliched. Get their attention, but do it with grace. Go left if they expect you to go right.  Use humour, gently.

When I talk about my experience, people typically assume that I learned about government relations during my years on Parliament Hill. I always respond the same way. “GR on parliament hill? No, I didn’t learn anything about government relations while I was there, I learned all about public relations because that’s who our audience was.”

My answer is unexpected, so it becomes memorable.  It’s not rocket science, it just shows a little-unexpected logic.

Renew It: Don’t take your pitch for granted. Always consider new ways of delivering it.  Refine and refresh it over time.

One size does not fit all: if you have different target audiences, then you should have different pitches. Context should also change the nature of the pitch.  For example, there’s the pitch to have a meeting that happens in an elevator and then there’s the pitch to sell your idea that might happen while sitting next to someone on a plane.

Have you ever delivered a great pitch in a pinch? Have you ever been sold something because the pitch was too good to refuse? I’d love to hear your views.

Related Articles:

The Truth About Elevator Pitches

The Truth About Elevator Pitches

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Communications, public relations

Personal Paradigms, The Good, The Bad & The Impact

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Paradigms, Good, Bad
Imagine operating with no point of reference.

They say that goldfish have a memory that’s about 10 seconds long, no doubt a gross exaggeration but for argument’s sake, let’s say that’s true. With a memory that short, they would be forever rediscovering the world around them. They would have no operating principle to help them navigate. Without personal paradigms we’d be very much like that goldfish.  Though his bowl of water is small he is forever shouting, “Hey, there’s a castle! Hey, there’s a castle!”

How Personal Paradigms Serve Us: Paradigms help us to interpret, define and engage in the world around us. Without our paradigms we would constantly be struggling to determine and define what we see, what we hear and what we should do about it. Our paradigms help us to move through our lives seamlessly.

When I was in college, I made a friend who often shared stories about her family and their activities. She spoke of the antiques her mother collected and the beautiful old apartment they lived in. She shared stories of their travels and generally painted an amazing picture of her life.  As I got to know her better it became clear her stories didn’t quite reflect reality. There were no antiques, no beautiful apartment and certainly no travels.

Young or old?
Young or old?

Flash forward a few years and I’m on Parliament Hill and the office across the hall has brought in a summer student. One day the student tells us about her adventures. She has met Sting, spent a few weeks on the streets for a research project, her grandmother has left all her money to her cats and she has written for a popular soap opera. As you can imagine, because of my history, my paradigm would not allow me to believe the stories she told unless I had evidence. It was simple, when people start telling fantastical stories about their lives you need to look more carefully.

Later, I quietly mentioned to my colleague that I had some suspicions about the truth of the stories shared. Well my colleague’s paradigm was different from mine, so she got more than a little annoyed at my suspicions and few uncomfortable days followed. After a short period, the summer student… disappeared from the office across the way. It eventually came out that she had made up all of her stories, including her skills. People were shocked and angry, but not me. My paradigm had stepped in and said, this is bull. Once that happened, all I could see were flaws and inconsistencies. Our paradigms save us a lot of grief and can generally help us to interpret the world.

How Personal Paradigms Make Us Blind to the World: So your thinking, so what? You’ve heard all this stuff before. But what if despite knowing this, the most experienced and in some cases the most powerful people in our respective worlds persisted in behaving as if their paradigm was the only paradigm?

Is the black diamond the top or bottom of the square?
Is the black diamond the top or bottom of the square?

People get used to power and after a while they can start to think that no matter what they do or say, they are somehow removed from consequences. They can build a personal paradigm around themselves that is so airtight that they become incapable of seeing pitfalls. They lose the ability to judge good from bad. They can divorce themselves from seeing the errors in  their own behavior.

Over the last several weeks I have watched a series of stories emerge in the news that simply begged the question, what were they thinking? Did Canadian Senator Mike Duffy really think it’d would be OK to claim $90,000 in illegitimate expenses?  Did he and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel S. Wright, get so used to managing big sums that it simply seemed… irrelevant?

Why didn’t Paula Deen just apologize and disappear for a while? Had she gotten so used to popularity that being accused of using racists language seemed like the kinda thing that would be a headline grabber one day but just go away the next? Did Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, stay silent after being accused of getting caught on video doing drugs with known dealers because he thought the public would just get bored with the story?

When our paradigms blind us, they don’t just make us blind to opportunity, they make us blind to threats, blind to ethical considerations, blind to the harm we are doing.

Whatever Your Perspective, Understand That You Have One: Although you may have heard it countless times, don’t forget that your truth is not necessarily THE  truth.  Your version of reality may not even be based in reality. If  this was an easy thing to remember, then the examples above would be a lot harder to find.

Has your paradigm ever helped or hindered you? Have you ever seen someone else struggle because they just couldn’t see the “truth” of a situation?

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Government Relations, public relations

How To Build Coalitions

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how to build a coalition

You carefully research your topic, spend hours writing an amazing article. Edit and then re-edit, checking for accuracy and flow. You take the time to create original images or you search through hundreds of images until you find the ones that speak perfectly to your issue.  You work out which platforms you will use to share your article and then you stop. That’s it.  Chances are, if that’s all you do, only you…and maybe your mom will read your article. If you want reach a broader audience, you need to reach out and share with your network.

If you’re a blogger, you become part of a blogging community. Fellow bloggers can lend guidance, support and generally make things easier for you to reach your goals and your audience.

The same applies for most government relations campaigns. Government is obliged to think about public interest, so if you want action or attention, you generally have to position your issue as having relevance for more than just you or your organization.  If there are people in your community or in your sector that agree with your issue, you can use each other as additional resources to support your objectives.  That collective energy can sometimes mean the difference between being the lone voice in the wilderness and having the benefits of stereo and a good set of speakers. Forming effective coalitions is an efficient way to get your message out and keep it out. So what’s a coalition? Coalitions are really just alliances, unions or partnerships; they act to bring together like minded individuals to pursue a common goal. If you decide to start a coalition, there are few things you should keep in mind.

Define Your Goal: The first thing you want to determine is what that common goal is. There is no value in assuming what your partners want.  Put it in writing and ensure you all agree or you may find yourself arguing at the worst possible time…like in front of the government official you are trying to persuade. A colleague of mind experienced this while sitting in a Minister’s office with coalition members, talk about awkward.

Coordinate your activities. It is best if you coordinate your approach so that you are getting the biggest bang for your buck. If your issue is particularly complicated, it might mean taking your time and having everyone deliver the same message but each partner  emphasizing a different perspectives.  Even when messages seem simplecoalitionscoordination is critical because sending multiple messages or competing perspectives can undermine everyone’s objectives. Competing perspectives force the issue to slow down and puts the legislator, often the  informed on a topic, into the role of mediator or judge. It can also mean that you will spend  valuable time explaining someone else’s perspective.

Be clear on everyone’s commitment at the start. As you consider the likely benefits of a coalition keep in mind that while often all it takes to start something is one person, to keep things going generally requires a little help.  Having a conversation about the degree of time, effort and resources each coalition member  is prepared to commit to the process is an important part of avoiding disappointment or frustration later on.

A coalition should reduce not increase your workload. Coalition activity should reduce labor for all participants.  If you find you’re working harder than ever and making less or little process, you need to rethink your partnership.

You have to trust your partners. and like any partnership, there has to be trust.  If there is a group or organization that shares your perspective but there is something about them that you do not trust or find unsavory, then don’t partner.  Your negative feelings will eventually manifest themselves in ways that may undermine your objectives. You may also put yourself into a position of lying to the legislator about your commitment to the group, and honesty must be the underpinning of all government engagement.

Getting started doesn’t need to be complicated. Sometimes gathering people around a cause is as straightforward as talking to your neighbors or friends about an issue. In business settings it may mean requesting a meeting and presenting a proposal for common action.  While you may not want your coalition to become too unwieldy, if at first you can only think of one or two partners, ask each of them to think of another possible member for your coalition.

Stretch scarce resources through collective action. Coalitions are also a great way to get more accomplished with less.  They let legislators know that they will have a broader band of support for their actions if they support your cause and they reduce the stress on any one individual or organization of carrying the entire communications burden.

Compromise is key to success. The thing to keep in mind with coalitions is that it can’t be all about you. You will generally have to make compromises if it’s going to work. It is difficult to imagine (if not impossible) that any gathering of people will have identical ideas on how to achieve goals. be open to suggestion, but not so open you find yourself working on issues you don’t care about.

Keep it simple. Coalitions work best if the issue they are addressing is kept simple and the duration short.  Usually if the issues expand and the coalition continues to function over a longer period it becomes more of an association or society. Keeping issues simple means it will be easier to maintain consensus, so keep the common elements simple and clear.

Coalitions work in all kinds of settings,  whether it’s neighbors opposing local construction projects or bloggers working together to address common challenges. Have you ever had to become part of a team or coalition in order to get something done? What was the toughest part?  What was the easiest?

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