DIGGING FASTER WHEN YOU’RE IN A HOLE
Getting in deeper is not the way out
Every investor knows that when a favorite stock goes South, it’s time to cut your loss and get out. Unfortunately not every politician seems to know that, and therein lies a lesson for all marketers. Or as the politicians say, when you’re in a deep hole, stop digging.
This seems to be among the lessons that politicians never learn. Trent Lott may not have saved his leadership in the Senate, but he certainly could have come out of it more graciously if he simply admitted that he’d made a mistake with a slip of his tongue in the enthusiasm of the event that clearly didn’t reflect his real feelings, and then refused to say any more than that. The more he tried to talk his way out of it, the more it became clear that he really did mean what he said. President Clinton might have saved himself if he had simply said, “I did it, it was stupid, I won’t do it again,” instead of trying to talk his way out of it.
You would think that after all these years politicians would have learned. Perhaps the hubris inherent in politicians leads them to think that they can talk themselves out of anything. They can’t.
Neither, it seems, can corporate leaders. Witness Martha Stewart. If she had simply said, “Yes, I did it. It was a mindless mistake and I’ll never do it again. That’s all I have to say,” and it was all she had to say, she might have gotten out of the spotlight, and a lot more trouble.
It can happen to anyone caught with his or her hand in the cookie jar. You’re caught, admit it, apologize, and move along. It seems so simple, and when it’s done it either works to make it all go away, or it takes the sting out of it. What can people – investors, the press, the law – say after that? Not very much (unless it’s murder, of course). Maybe some punishment, if what you’ve done is bad enough, and as they say, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. And if there is indeed potential criminal liability, why not just shut up and blame the lawyers? They have broad shoulders and cool heads. But at least it will take the juice out of the story.
A recent article in The New York Times quoted Dr. Barry Schlenker, a professor of psychology at the University of Florida and an expert on people’s attempts to evade or diminish their responsibility for “…the irresponsible, thoughtless, inadequate, stupid, or hurtful things they do.” Dr. Schlenker noted that we all seem too quick to construct explanations that take away responsibility. He noted also that deflecting blame carries a significant risk, which is the point most overlooked in this behavior.
The fascinating thing is that this behavior is so widespread that it’s become a psychological specialty.
With all the experience, with all the accumulated wisdom of years of public relations thinking, what does it take for us to learn? Dealing with the press, and particularly damage control, is pretty cut and dried. Reams of articles, and many books, have been written about it, and most of it says the same thing. You might want to look at Spinning Out of Control, in this newsletter. Every public relations expert knows how to do it (Oh, who pays attention to those people? I’m the CEO and I know better).
There is a caveat, though. Civilization has seen the need for a hangman for hundreds of years, but nobody has found a way to make the hangman loveable.