Imagine that you’re the Winnipeg School Division and your current claim to fame is a couple of cell phone videos of two of your teachers simulating a lap dance and oral sex during a high school pep rally. The high school is pilloried by media around the world. The teachers in question are lambasted by students, parents, politicians and every human being who hears the story and shakes their head in dismay.

So what do you do if you are the Winnipeg School Division? Why, you pretend nothing has happened at all. That has been the approach of the WSD administration ever since the Churchill High School lap dance scandal broke.

Today’s Winnipeg Free Press reported that the division has even removed any media stories from the clippings it sends to its trustees. Those would be the same trustees that the citizens of Winnipeg elected to govern the administration.

Let’s repeat that: the trustees are supposed to govern the administration.But I digress.

This story continues to go from bad to worse. What started as a serious lapse of judgment for a couple of high school teachers has escalated to a potential crisis of confidence in the entire school division administration.

It’s hard to tell why the administration is burying its head in the sand on this. There have been a few comments saying that it’s a personnel matter and therefore is entirely private. That may be, but that doesn’t mean it’s not also a full-blown communications crisis for the school division and the school in question.

As it happens, I live in the catchment area for Churchill High School. I also have a son for whom my wife and I have to soon decide if he’ll attend Churchill or some other school that doesn’t have lap dancing during pep rallies. As a parent, I’m looking for some sign that the school and the division understand the depth of the mistrust this episode has bred. As a voter, I’m searching for some evidence that the school division is capable of handling itself competently. Sadly, I’m seeing the exact opposite on both counts.

The school division could have taken a much more pro-active approach to this situation while still respecting the privacy of the teachers. Its executive management team should have immediately responded both within the school community (before it hit the media). And once it hit the media, it needed to speak through the media and via its own publications to the general public (to reach would be parents like me). We need to be reassured of the culture and policies at work in our schools and in our school division.

Instead, the only public action it’s taken has been to threaten the students who took the videos and to see that they’re removed from YouTube. Seems to me they’re trying to move mountains to protect the reputations of two teachers that have deservedly lost them on their own. Meanwhile, the reputation of the WSD and of Churchill High School has been permanently smeared by their inaction.

I pity the communications people around Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams. He’s a blowhard at the best of times, but how do you handle his decision to have relatively simple heart surgery in the United States.

Choosing to pay for a U.S. hospital over a ‘free’ Canadian one is akin to poking a finger in an open wound.It says loudly that one of our country’s most prominent leaders has more faith in U.S. hospitals than our own. Simultaneously, it has dragged a taboo topic into the spotlight: those who can afford it, go to the U.S. for serious health issues. There’s no other way to put it.

His message is clear: Canada’s health care system is second rate and pity the poor suckers who have to stay at home to wait (and wait and wait) to use it.

It would have been a stroke of genius if he had intended to drive home those points in a very public manner, but Williams continues to strike the oft-repeated chord of Canadian politicians:

“I have the utmost confidence in our health-care system, I certainly do,” the 60-year-old said (in the Globe and Mail), perched on a leather chair in his condominium in Sarasota, Fla. “It’s a bum rap for someone to turn around and say, ‘Oh, Williams does not have confidence in his own health-care system because he has to leave the province.’ ”

A bum rap, eh? No, the only one who got the bum rap was the PR person who has to try to keep lipstick on this pig.

Williams’ “ass”-inine actions follow on the heels of popular mixed martial arts fighter Brock Lesnar’s condemnation of a Manitoba hospital last month. Lesnar went to a Brandon hospital in the middle of a diverticulitis attack. Unsatisfied with how he was being treated, his wife drove him to North Dakota for treatment instead.

Credibility is the most valuable commodity in public communications. These public dismissals of our hospitals only reinforce the general public’s too frequently miserable experiences with health care in Canada. Whether you’re in Brandon, Manitoba or St. John’s, Newfoundland… or Ottawa … it’s must now be a lot harder to pitch a positive story about our hospitals.

Grand Chief David Harper sure made the most of things this week. He’s the one who led the symbolic protest against Health Canada over the body bag fiasco.

Health Canada apparently sent shipments to some remote Manitoba reserves that contained body bags in addition to hand sanitizer and other items. Harper found out about it and decided to make the most of the situation. He brought the body bags to the Health Canada office in Winnipeg and marked the boxes “return to sender.”

He told Canada AM that the reserves in question have been awaiting emergency preparedness kits in anticipation of more H1N1 flu cases, but have yet to receive them. Instead, they got body bags.

The emotional and political impact of this story was immediate. Opposition leaders postured that the government was betraying its callousness. The Minister of Health apologized and promised an immediate investigation. The story has led the national news cycle replacing the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington and Parliament’s avoidance of a fall election.

The entire episode is an example of why ongoing, open communications with stakeholders is vitally important.

I have no way of knowing why Health Canada has apparently been slow in delivering the kits Chief Harper referenced. I suspect that body bags may well be an appropriate item to deliver to communities that are expected to face a higher than average incidence of severe flu this fall. Preparedness isn’t always sunshine and light. The problem, I believe, was less in the delivery than in the surprise.

Communicate clearly with your stakeholder groups. Tell them what’s coming, listen to their response, remind them what’s coming and what you heard… and then, once done, tell them what you just did.

Health Canada deserves the headache it’s getting. Harper had every right to exploit this situation. His aggressive use of the media here will help his communities get the medical supplies they need sooner.

I recommend that Health Canada start its investigation with its communications protocols.

Dooley Communications is pleased to be celebrating its second full year in business this summer, offering senior level public relations and corporate communications services. From our base in Winnipeg, Manitoba, our firm now serves clients from across Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

We have organized small and large media events for clients and created entire public relations strategies for others. We regularly conduct media training seminars, and counsel organizations through the minefields of issues management and crisis communications. We’ve helped write and produce annual reports, newsletters, brochures and websites, and we’ve written countless blogs and advised on the best use of social media.

It continues to be a fun, exciting challenge as we build a service-oriented public relations firm here in the Canadian Prairies.

So thank you to all our clients. We look forward to serving and growing with you in the future.

So the government has screwed you over. Your frustration is palpable. It rises to the surface as soon as anyone mentions the name of a certain minister or a bureaucrat. You can’t resist taking a shot at them every opportunity you get. But as the old saying goes: if you get into a pissing match with a skunk, you might win, but you’ll both end up smelling badly.

I spend a lot of my time advising clients about what and what not to say in public about a wide variety of issues. But media training and effective media relations is as much about how you say things too.

It is rarely (if ever) a good strategy to get into a highly charged, public confrontation. Our job is to influence the opinions, perceptions and behaviour of targeted audiences. We can’t do that job effectively if we appear to be irrational, angry or bitter. On the contrary, if you’re in a public battle, we want to show through our public utterances that we are more credible than our opposition. We’re the opinion leaders. We deserve our audiences’ respect and attention.

As is almost always the case with good corporate communications and public relations, it comes down to this: remember your audience!

That is just one of the important lessons we cover in our media training sessions. Dooley Communications has led media training for a wide variety of organizations in Winnipeg, Manitoba and across Canada, helping front line employees to executives better handle the pressures of representing their organizations in public.

Often in my line of work, clients become very worried about complaints coming in from stakeholders or criticism appearing in the media. They invariably want to know how we are going to win them over. In most cases I say that we may never be able to do that… and that’s okay.

In the field of issues management, where you’re dealing with contentious matters, you have to recognize from the get-go that you’re not going to get everyone to support your side. Unanimity is an impossible target, so don’t even try for it. If there’s the least bit of controversy, there’ll certainly be a minority of people dead set against your interests. On the upside, there’ll be a corresponding minority of people who are your core supporters - whose loyalty will almost never waver.

We counsel our clients that our goal is to persuade the middle. Acknowledge your loyalists and pay respect to your opponents, but our aim is to sway the opinions of people whose minds are not completely made up, or who are perhaps completely indifferent to your cause. (I know it’s difficult to imagine people indifferent to an issue that is life or death for your company or organization, but trust me when I say they’re out there in great numbers.)

Take a look at the success the anti-tobacco lobby has enjoyed over the years. Thirty years ago they were facing an uphill battle trying to get people to quit. Smokers puffed away in theatres, on buses, at the office and even in grocery stores. It wasn’t even easy to persuade people of the health threat that tobacco smoke posed to smokers and non-smokers alike. A steady campaign, armed with science and consistent, urgent and credible messages eventually won over the middle. Bylaws gradually banned smoking indoors and smokers began to give up the habit in greater numbers (myself included). And today, the overwhelming majority of people in our society see things the way the anti-tobacco lobby sees them. But there’s still a rump of dissenters. And there will always be.

In public relations, our efforts are focused on appealing to the self-interest of our target audiences. Make your issue connect with their needs, their wants, their lives, and you’ll be on the road to success.

We excel at helping our clients navigate issues in Northwestern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We know how to reach key influencers and how to carve messages that persuade and mold opinions. We use traditional and new media to get the job done.

I’m in the middle of reading The Snowball, the ‘authorized’ biography of Warren Buffett by Alice Schroeder, and it has made me realize what a master of public relations the old mega-billionaire is. I’ll go one further: I would say that Buffett’s razor sharp PR instincts were key to him becoming one of the richest people in the world. The public relations efforts he led saved (or earned) him billions over the years.

But he’s just an investor, you say? He’s a numbers guy. What does he know about RACE formulas (Research, Analyze, Communicate, Evaluate, for those who don’t know) and winning over ‘key stakeholders’ and all that good jargony stuff? It’s because he understands how important one’s reputation is and how hard it is to earn credibility.  In his words: “it takes a lifetime to earn a reputation, and five minutes to blow it.”

One of the best examples of his PR instincts came from the Salomon Brothers scandal of 1991. Buffett had parachuted in a few years earlier as a white knight investor to save the firm from a hostile takeover. With eerie echoes of today’s financial mess, Salomon was a brash, bullying investment bank that had run afoul of regulators by trying to corner the market on treasury bonds. When the scandal broke, Salomon was in a crisis to survive. Leveraged to the hilt, its lenders were calling its loans and the bank had to unwind huge investment and derivative positions around the globe. It looked as though the bank would fail and that a global financial crisis would ensue (sound familiar?).

As a board member, Buffett had been insulated from the shenanigans of the bond traders, and was the only person close to the situation who had the reputation and experience to take the helm of the sinking ship. He did so reluctantly, but he recognized that the credibility he had built so preciously over 50 years was about the only thing that could steady the bank.

He immediately held a news conference where he told all. He sat there for more than an hour taking question after question after question. The reporters were spent before he was, but he left no room for misinformation or obfuscation. The effect of his performance was to take the air out of the sails of the newshounds who were hunting for injured, scandalized fat cats. He talked about the wrongdoing. He expressed his huge disappointment with it and broadcast loudly that the old culture of Salomon would change immediately.

Then he also decided to cooperate so closely with investigators that he even waived attorney-client privilege for the firm so anything its lawyers discovered would be shared with regulators. Now, that’s transparency. Finally, he took immediate action to change policies (including compensation policies) at the bank, fired people who had to be fired and told everyone that the old ways were over.

In the middle of the storm, this is how he dealt with his PR firm:

Everything at Salomon was turned topsy-turvy as the new culture of openness went into effect… Buffett walked into a room at 7 World Trade Center for a meeting. Someone, acting on autopilot, had hired a new public relations firm. Around a large square table, two dozen people sat waiting for them. Some worked for Salomon, but most were public relations people and lobbyists who were billing by the hour. Buffett listened for fifteen minutes as they described how they wanted to manage the crisis. Then he stood up. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to excuse myself,” he said. He leaned over, whispered in [lawyer Ron] Olson’s ear, “Tell them they won’t be needed,” and walked out of the room.

“It isn’t that we’re misunderstood, for Christ’s sake,” said Buffett afterward. “We don’t have a public relations problem. We have a problem with what we did.” (page 602)

I disagree with the last quotation… he did have a PR problem, but I agree that he didn’t need help to “manage a crisis.” He knew what to do. It was his reputation on the line and, at that moment, he was Salomon Brothers. I’d love to know what approach the firm had  pitched. Not that it would have mattered. Buffett was already following the perfect crisis communications plan. He did, however, need his communications and PR people to carry out that plan.

CEOs and business leaders should take note of this, as should public relations people. It is a perfect example of why it’s so important for a CEO to understand intuitively what needs to be done to protect a firm’s reputation. The first step is to build a good reputation in the first place. Be honest. Be credible. And do your thing.

In the end, Buffett’s approach to the crisis saved the bank, saved thousands of jobs and billions in shareholder equity. It burnished his reputation as a corporate do-gooder further.

I’ve worked with and for quite a few business leaders here in Winnipeg and, judging from what I’ve seen, more than a few of them could take lessons from this on how to relate to their publics. I remember one episode where I had to explain gently to a senior executive why a ‘no comment’ response to a potential crisis in his organization was the wrong approach. If I’d had The Snowball with me that day, I’d have liked to have thrown it at him.

Client Services Manager

Winnipeg, October 14, 2008 - Dooley Communications has an immediate opening for a Manager of Client Services to serve our growing roster of clients. Dooley Communications is a small, fast-growing and innovative agency with a focus on providing senior level public relations and corporate communications services to corporations, government agencies and non-profits.

The Manager of Client Services will take a lead role on managing and executing projects for our clients. We are seeking a career communications professional with a minimum of two years experience working in a corporate or agency environment; very strong writing skills; confidence in oral presentations; a creative flair and a nose for quality and detail.

The position calls for someone with a post-secondary degree or diploma in communications, experience in media relations, issues management and at least some event management. The successful candidate will be a self-starter with an entrepreneurial attitude who can work independently in an unstructured environment. A desire to excel at client service is vital. You will be very comfortable working online, have an interest in the latest trends in communications and marketing, and a desire to consistently learn and improve your skills.

Dooley Communications offers a competitive package of salary, bonuses and benefits. Our motto is to be excellent, be urgent and be yourself. If that suits your personality, then drop us a line.

Please send resume and cover letter with salary expectations in confidence to Adam Dooley, President, at adooley@dooleycommunications.ca. Deadline for applications for this position is October 27, 2008.

Just wanted to say a quick thank you to the Public Relations Fundamentals class at the University of Winnipeg’s department of continuing education. I was substituting for regular instructor Carl Radimer tonight and had a great time. It’s a great class with a lot of thoughtful comments.

I enjoyed leading the discussion on issues management and how corporations and governments can use public relations to persuade, shape public opinion and  win over their various audiences.

Political campaigns make for some interesting studies in communications theory and issues management. Take the case of Trevor Kennerd, former football player and current Conservative candidate for Winnipeg South-Centre (which happens to be my riding).

Twice in the last two weeks, Mr. Kennerd has been ambushed by critics trying to tar him as an extreme social conservative, anti-abortion advocate and homophobe. If he were running in rural Alberta, he might just cheer that kind of characterization, but he’s running in what is probably the safest Liberal (and liberal) riding west of Ontario. It’s Lloyd Axworthy’s old riding; the only riding in Western Canada that remained Liberal in the Mulroney landslide of 1984; and one that’s been held quite comfortably Liberal likely since the Tories hung Louis Riel.

The Conservatives have made Liberal incumbent Anita Neville a target and have flooded the riding with pamphlets for the past two years trying to soften up her support. They recruited the well-known Mr. Kennerd earlier this year and local media were starting to talk about the possibility of an upset.

Then came the first blow. It seems Mr. Kennerd accepted campaign financing from an anti-abortion group. I don’t know if it’s true or not. Mr. Kennerd didn’t answer the charge in the media. He said nothing (as far as I can tell anyway).

Then the next blow (see Gordon Sinclair’s column here). A gay and lesbian group dug up an old letter that Mr. Kennerd and his wife had written to the Winnipeg School Division in 1999 blasting plans to use the classroom to fight discrimination against homosexuals. This time, his campaign responded, but only with a written statement which didn’t deal with the central issue, the accusation of bigotry.

I don’t know what Mr. Kennerd truly believes. That’s not why I’m writing this. From a pure communications perspective, he did himself a great disservice by remaining mum and not responding quickly and directly to the attacks. Instead, he let his opponents and critics position him as a man with views that many in this riding would consider intolerant. By not responding, he missed the opportunity at air time and ink to refute and reposition.

In issues management and branding… you can never let your opponents position you. You have to position yourself. As a marketing guy, he might have followed the examples of the advertising world in this regard. Witness Microsoft’s recent I’m a PC advertising campaign aiming to do just that versus Apple.