Quote of the day

A property management firm in Chicago decided to sue one of its tenants for a Twitter post that spoke ill of the company.  The company, Horizon Group Management, says that the tenant sent the message maliciously and filed suit asking for $50,000 in damages.

Asked about the suit by the Chicago Sun-Times, Horizon owner Jeffrey Michael noted:

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization."  Yee-haw!

Ok, I added the Yee-haw part.  And I don't think he was riding a horse when he was talking to the reporter.

But anyway, I guess that didn't go over so well because the company went on to issue a news release yesterday "apologizing for tongue in cheek comments that were made previously regarding our approach to litigation".

Phew.  But they're still litigating.

Issue management 101: Douse the issue before it gets out of hand

Fire at the White House is out. Time to go back to the health care debate.

Wow. President Obama just went in front of the Whitehouse Press corps and said he'd erred in his comment on how the Cambridge, Mass. police arrested a prominent African American professor. Immediately after the arrest, Obama had said:

"the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home."

But today, Obama rightly moved to douse the issue, calling the arresting officer directly and saying he'd essentially erred in his comments.

"I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically," Obama told reporters. "I could have calibrated those words differently, and I told this to Sgt. Crowley."

The fact was the controversy over the arrest and the President's subsequent comments were overtaking the agenda in Washington and distracting media and politicans from debate on the health care legislation in front of Congress. All too often people in this position wait too long to engage with the counterparty in a controversy and this usually just magnifies the issue.

Mark Knoller (@markknoller) from CBS notes that:

In the past, Presidents wait to the very last moment to admit an error in judgment: Clinton-Monica; Reagan/Contras: Ford/Poland.

Obama made the right move by acting quickly. Most politicians aren't this astute. Normally we see officials in trouble bend themselves out of shape to avoid saying they screwed up. It's an all too often occurrence. Outside politics it's an issue you frequently see as well.

The bottom line is people sometimes make mistakes. Your average person understands that. So if you take the initiative and wrest control of the issue by owning up to the blunder, you and your organization will be better off in the end. You might just have to swallow a little pride in the process.

Above all else, be credible. Are you listening Chicago Blackhawks?

There's a certain type of PR hack that drags down the whole profession. It's the flack that tries to spin something beyond the realm of credibility. In the process they leave a trail of disbelief, skeptics and second guesses at what is actually going on in the organization.

Case in point - the Chicago Blackhawks fired their GM, Dale Tallon, today and put in place his subbordinate, Stan Bowman - son of hockey great Scotty Bowman. But the release announcing the change is frankly, BS. It says:

The Chicago Blackhawks have promoted Stan Bowman to General Manager and have reassigned Dale Tallon to the position of Senior Advisor, Hockey Operations.

This kind of thinly-veiled attempt to disguise what's going on helps no one. Worse yet, the release has a humiliating 'quote' from Tallon:

“In my new role as Senior Advisor, Hockey Operations I will continue in any way that will help make this a better product on the ice. I’ve seen Stan come up through our ranks and I’m confident he is the right person to step in. This is what is best for the Chicago Blackhawks.”

Who in their right mind would believe Tallon actually said this? And its the height of poor taste to belittle a guy you've fired by making it look like he agrees that it's the best decision. Nobody will buy this. I don't care how crappy someone is at their job, who's going to stand up and agree they should be fired?

I can just imagine the team's communications department hunkered down trying to find a way to manage this issue. However, the course they chose didn't solve the problem. It only magnifies the rift that must be going on behind the scenes. Rather than deal with the issue and allow the team to move on, they've only invited more questions. And you're guaranteeing future skepticism from journalists and your stakeholders in the future.

The reality is people get fired. Things sometimes don't work out. The best way to deal with these situations is to just be up front and clear about the situation. Lay out the facts and explain where you're going. In this way you'll actually manage the issue down and allow the organization to move on.

The case against real-time PR

At the end of the G8 conference Canadian Prime Minister Harper attacked Liberal opposition Leader Ignatieff for a quote that ended up being from someone else.

How'd it happen? Harper's press secretary Dimitri Soudas was e-mailed the quote from a colleague in Canada; briefed the PM on the fly; and the PM then let fly a verbal pounding against Ignatieff. When it soon became clear the quote that set Harper off wasn't actually from Ignatieff, apologies started flowing from the PM and Soudas.

Harper: "I learned shortly after the press conference this was not a quotation of Mr. Ignatieff," said Harper before departing L'Aquila.

"I regret the error and I apologize to Mr. Ignatieff for this error."

Soudas: "I am upset," and he added later that the prime minister was "clearly, clearly not happy with the fact that he was put in that situation by one of his advisors.

"The prime minister is very bothered by the fact that his press secretary mis-informed him, and mis-briefed him and hence he obviously made an accusation."

I can see where Soudas wanted to use what seemed like a good opportunity to bash an opponent, but this episode is a great example of ensuring your communications infrastructure has the right checks and balances to make sure everything you say is 100% accurate.

For companies, the closest comparison to the speed in which the communications cycle was running in this situation would be a crisis management episode. In crises, events happen quickly, facts can change by the moment and its critical for your reputation that your communications remain accurate.

That means stay open and honest, but also slow down the process a bit to ensure you're providing clear and accurate facts. If you don't you run the risk of a meltdown that could likely compound any reputational damage from the crisis.

Jasmine MacDonnell, Ryan Sparrow - move over and make room for Mr. Soudas.

Going waaaay of message

Bernie Ecclestone owns the commercial rights to F1 racing. In an interview with the Times of London he somehow wandered from discussing racing to Hitler. You can guess where this went.

"It's probably my fault in that I got dragged into something I wasn't supposed to discuss – we got out of F1 into something else," Ecclestone said.

However, Ecclestone said he does not regret praising Hitler's leadership "except as usual things were taken a little bit wrong."

Just a bit.