Logos team blog posts

Target ad Target Corp. recently got into hot water over their response to a blogger, and the response at the center of the conversation/controversy is instructive in what companies should not do when responding to the blogosphere. The story is also a recent example (among many) of how mainstream media and social media have converged. The story started on the Shaping Youth blog, whose writer wrote to the company about concerns over this Target ad. The blogger contacted Target, and got this response:

“Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.

Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.”

It’s no surprise that the company’s response – and the story – gained legs and started making its way around the blogosphere, and finally made the leap to mainstream media yesterday on the New York Times.

Side note: I’ve found it interesting that when I’ve talked about this story with different people, most poeple’s reaction is surprise – because it feels so uncharacteristic and out of brand character to them.

Dogs

The most memorable sock-puppet of 2007 was John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, who was revealed last year to have used a pseudonymous identity for more than seven years on an online message board. Mackey was not the first executive (or person from journalism, politics or the blogosphere) to have done what the New York Times defines as “creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one’s self, allies or company.”

But with the coming of the New Year, we’ve already seen one of the first widely public cases of two people from a non-profit using an astroturfing campaign to anonymously promote their organization.

The organization is GiveWell, which was launched in 2007 and attempts to analyze the effectiveness of other charities, publishing its findings as a resource tool for potential donors. It received a flurry of attention on December 20, with stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal among other media outlets, with some praising their approach and others offended by their harsh criticism of other charity review sites and charities themselves.

But the greater attention came after first one founder, Holden Karnofsky, and then the other, Elie Hassenfeld, admitted that they had used fake identities to promote GiveWell online. (You can see the overview of all activity relating to this crisis on the MetaFilter wiki here, and an example of Karnofksy’s posts on MNSpeak.)

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Howard Schultz, Source: AP

“Crisis management is the new black!” A good friend recently shared that revelation with me via email. I had to laugh, not only because I enjoy a witty fashion metaphor, but because I’ve also enjoyed watching crisis management come of age in the public consciousness. Even in this era of distrust and information saturation, people are warming up to the power of the sincere apology – a step toward redemption requiring that dollop of humility my partner Fred Garcia writes about. More and more, people are welcoming the forward arc of emotionally-intelligent, collaborative leadership on a global scale. Absolutely fabulous, I say!

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What Orwell Didn’t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, edited by András Szántó, Public Affairs Press, 2007.

Cartoon medium size: Misleading

George Orwell’s seminal essay “Politics and the English Language” noted that precision in language is a reflection of clear thinking. Imprecise language not only reflects weak thinking on the part of the writer or speaker, it causes weak thinking among its audience. Says Orwell:

An effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take a drink because he feels himself a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

But Orwell wasn’t interested merely in being society’s copy editor. He noted the nefarious consequences of debasement of language in the political realm:

Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

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No, it’s not what you think. For those of you unacquainted with Spaeth Communications’ always-engaging Bimbo Newsletter, take a look at the 2007 wrap-up in Bimbo Winners here. They publish winners monthly, and I always learn something, laugh, or scratch my head.

“The Bimbo Award recognizes dumb public comments made during the year. The criterion for nomination is that the speaker causes the listener to believe exactly the opposite of what is said. The award is a reminder that repeating negative words only reinforces the negative message as well as misses the opportunity to convey the right message to the reader or listener.”

rt_clinton_emotional3_080109_ms.jpgThank you all for your very thoughtful comments on my post on humility as a leadership attribute.

Today (the day after the New Hampshire primary) I’ve gotten lots of calls and e-mails from people who read my original post, all commenting on Senator Hillary Clinton’s surprise victory in New Hampshire.

As you know, after the Iowa caucuses the conventional wisdom was that Senator Barack Obama, who had captured the women’s vote on his way to overwhelming victory in Iowa, would replicate his triumph in the New Hampshire primary.

Then Senator Clinton had a moment that changed the story. (See the YouTube video of her emotional moment.) Depending on which pundits you listen to, she either had an uncharacteristic moment of authentic vulnerability or a highly-contrived moment of inauthentic vulnerability. But the vulnerability — roundly interpreted as weakness — was seen to have changed the outcome.

It’s probably too soon to know for sure whether the expression of emotion really made such a difference. But it’s very interesting that vulnerability – however authentic it may be – is now seen to have propelled her to the front of the pack.

We’ll keep watching; your comments and reactions are welcomed…

Fred

Footprints

The current run of presidential primaries, and the surprising (to some) results so far, has me thinking further ahead – not about the elections of ’08, but about the elections of say, 2024, when today’s college students will first become eligible to run for presidential office.

Specifically, how will the digital footprints left by today’s younger generation affect the leaders of all types – political, business, social – of tomorrow? How will elections and interviews for top jobs be different when everyone will have the opportunity to parse the candidate’s Facebook (or other) profiles and blog entries from their early years? Real life reputational effects of online behavior are absolutely already being felt, but the effects of the accumulation of years of online history have yet to be seen at the highest levels of leadership.

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What are the leadership attributes that contribute to long-term success? That help get through adversity?

I was reflecting on these questions as I put together our year-end review of crises, The Year of Living Self-Destructively. The defining crises of 2007 were all self-inflicted; even where the triggering event was external, the leader’s handling of the crisis only made things worse.

What these crises had in common was this: the leaders who caused the self-inflicted harm exhibited little, if any, humility. Read more

 

Welcome to the Logos Institute for Crisis Management & Executive Leadership.

We hope that this blog provokes discussion, deliberation, and some fresh ideas. As a learning organization, Logos Institute is committed to continuous development: of our own perspectives, skills, and aptitudes, and of our clients’, friends’ and the community’s as well.

Each of the Logos Institute fellows who will post here has a particular set of interests, expertise, and passions. We hope to share them with you, and to engage you to share your interests, expertise, and passion. Sometimes the posts will be evergreen, on important but timeless topics. Sometimes they will seize on breaking news to find teachable (dare I say, learnable?)  moments that help us better make sense of what’s going on around us. And sometimes we’ll just exercise whimsy.

We invite you to join us on this journey.

Fred