THE LUTHER’S EFFECT; Why People Respond to a Particular Message and Reject Another.

What Communication style makes the best impact in a particular situation.
Ishola Ayodele

On August 28, 1963 from the steps of Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr made a wonderful speech titled ‘I have a dream’ in which he called for an end to racism in the United States and also called for civil and economic rights.

Some staggering facts about the speech

I. Over 250,000 people came to the venue to hear Martin Luther King jr delivered this speech without TV or Radio announcement, there was no social media then.

II. No other gathering has achieved that feat.

III. 26% of the attendees were whites.

IV. That speech united Americans, what government effort with their huge resources couldn’t do.

V. That speech made Martin Luther King Jr to be list among the great men who shaped modern America like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

What is so special about Martin Luther King’s speech?

Functionalism is a school of thought in the field of Psychology which was pioneered by Dr. Williams James of Harvard University, John Dewey, Harvey Carr and John Angell. The functionalists believe that “we act because we feel”.

This point of view has been corroborated by the Recurring Theorem in Psychology which states that “A large proportion of our conscious activities are control by our unconscious activities”.

This has also been supported by Neurologists by observing how the brain functions under the FMRI machine. They have discovered that there is a part of the limbic system of the brain called Amygdala. The Amygdala assists in the development of memories, especially those related to emotional events and emergences.

This was what helped Martin Luther King Jr to motivate 250,000 people to attend his speech. He simply communicated his idea in an emotional way to people who shared his idea and these people communicated to other people who shared the same idea and it goes on like that.

As communicators, in order for us to effectively target our message so that it will make the desired impact we must understand the audience and the best communication style to approach them. As practitioners we must not only know our turf we must also know our stuff.

There are four main communication preference styles, as outlined in the communication Preference Styles Survey (CPSS), a diagnostic tool, developed by Ian C. Woodward, INSEAD Senior Affiliate Professor of Organizational Behaviour, to compare individual communication style preferences.

These styles are reflected in the language and words we use, the topics we choose to talk about, the nonverbal signals we give and the voice tone we project, as well as our overall approach to connecting with other people.

These communication styles include:


1) Rational Communicators

They come across as logical, factual and direct. They have a preference for analytical thinking and concentrate on key information that allows them to get straight to the point. Logic is their forte, and often empathy gets lost in the process.


2) Structured Communicators

They are organized, meticulous and detail-oriented. Their goal is to understand the world by concentrating on details and factual information. Big picture, abstract thinking is often more difficult for these communicators.


3) Expressive Communicators

These people display a people-oriented and emotive approach to communication. They are interested in humans and relationships and express this by being warm or passionate or emotional. Expression is their forte, while applying logic and structure does not come as natural.


4) Visual Communicators

They like to express their ideas in an animated, lively way, building on ideas, metaphors and images, preferring to concentrate on the “big picture” than the details. Intuition is their forte while facts and deep analysis is much less emphasized.

For a clearer understanding let us use the just concluded election in America as a case study. We shall try to analyse Mrs. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump communication style through the communication Preference Styles Survey (CPSS).

As is probably evident, Clinton has a strong preference towards Styles 1 and 2, while Trump’s way of communicating leaves little doubt about his preference towards Styles 3 and 4.


The logical straight shooter

When watching Mrs. Clinton during the second presidential debate, we see her initial reaction to the first question is to respond with a personal question in turn, thus modeling the behaviour of her husband, Bill Clinton, during his town-hall style presidential debate with George H. W. Bush in 1992. Bill Clinton’s personal and empathic question immediately created a human connection with the then-questioner and through his whole audience, starkly exposing the difference between his warm approach and Bush’s apparent lack of empathy.

However, Hillary is not Bill, and immediate empathic connection is not her forte. Her weapons lie elsewhere. She has a reputation for having a sharp head and a cool heart. After her first, personal remark to the questioner, she immediately starts to deliver a well-prepared, smoothly analytical response. Facts and details pour out of her with ease, and are, characteristically for the Style 1 and 2 “logically comprehensive communicator”, structured by order, logic and sequence. Her language is clear, and she connects the facts with the concrete, the “how-to”.

The downside of her communication style is that she might remind people of the strict school teacher who knew it all and used to humiliate them in class. This impression is reinforced by her clear, calm, modulated voice, as well as her behaviour during Trump’s turn to speak, as she diligently takes notes while he speaks. Her head held high, as if in disdain, and her sometimes pinched mouth further contribute to this perception.

This is a great disadvantage in a race for the White House where many voters cast their ballot based on nothing more rational or factual than “how they feel” about the candidate.


Passion and action

Trump, on the other hand, is the master of strong emotions, delivered with little logical underpinning or structure. His passionate rhetoric, and his imaginative, energetic, highly descriptive and unbridled emotional language create a sense of excitement and dynamism in his listeners, and give him the image of “a man of action”, in contrast with Clinton, who is seen as “the woman of words”.

Trump’s expressive facial and body language make him come across as more energized than Clinton’s poker face. Trump excels at creating engagement and interpersonal relationships, and elicits strong passions from people to whom facts and figures matter little.

However, the weak side to Trump’s communication style is also apparent: He jumps from one topic to another, and rarely if ever answers the original question, even when repeatedly brought back to it by the interviewer. He is undoubtedly able to touch and even rouse people (in a positive or negative way, depending on the point of view you take) but comes across as unprepared, unpredictable and lacking substance and depth.


Lesson here for communicators.

1. When communicating to propel an action speaking only to people’s heads does not create the passionate commitment as touching their hearts does. Thus, we must find a way to connect our reasonable message to the audience’s emotion. Strike at the Amygdala.

 2. When communicating to educate then hit more of the head. Give facts, statistics and logical reasoning that the audience can relate to not ambiguous facts and statistics. And also avoid giving too much information to prevent information overload.

3. A good communicator will always combine both effectively and efficiently.

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below.

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.

He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.

Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

TRUMP'S ELECTION; The Greatest Hollywood Movie Produced and Directed by PR

How PR Installed the 45th President of the United States of America.
Ishola Ayodele

According to the washingtonpost, as at November 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign fund was $1.3 Billion while Donald Trump's Campaign fund was $795 Million.

The fortune magazine reported that Clinton built a heavy groundwork across the country, keeping a staff “of about 700 for months,” while Trump, on the other hand, has managed a much leaner operation of about 70.

Mrs. Clinton ran more Ad than Trump, she was the favourite to win based on pre-election surveys and she according to CNN/ORC polls won all the three presidential debate by 52% to Trump’s 39%.

 *So, what went wrong?*

Remember what Socrates said, “if you want to make great decisions ask great questions”.

 Consequently, I think the right question should be “WHAT DID TRUMP DO RIGHT?”.

Whatever your opinion of him, Trump has done something that most marketers in general, and PR people in particular, should recognise. Rather than spending money solely on advertising, he adopted a balanced marketing strategy that was led by PR and social media, and merely supported by TV and other ads.

*Let us explore Trump’s PR strategy*

1) *Understand your audience's concerns and questions.*

     DATA POOL A
The fact is that Apple and indeed many American companies where able to compete favourably with goods from Asia and make great profit because they were able to cut cost greatly especially labour cost.

It is also a fact that America’s revenue from tax will decline sharply if Trump carry out his deportation policies.

The American constitution guaranteed the freedom of association and expression.

But are these facts meaningful to the non-college working class and faith-based American people?

 Certainly not, for if the facts were meaningful Hillary Clinton should have won the US presidential election not Donald Trump.

Facts don’t speak for themselves  because facts just like data are meaningless until they are interpreted to reflect a certain reality that is in congruent with the intended audience’s reality.

Here are facts which are in alignment with the reality of the majority of Americans especially lower-middle working class and faith-based organizations.

DATA POOL B
According to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

Since the year 2000, the U.S. has shed 5 million manufacturing jobs.

Professionals are more sort after than factory workers. The fastest growing jobs in America now are nurses, personal care aides, cooks, waiters, operations managers and retail salespersons.

Every year, over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States alone. That’s a student every 26 seconds – or 7,000 students a day.

About 25% of high school freshmen fail to graduate from high school on time.

The U.S., which had some of the highest graduation rates of any developed country, now ranks 22nd out of 27 developed countries.

Legalizing abortion and same sex marriage has not gone down well with religious organizations especially the evangelical who considered it as 'legalizing sins'.

All of the above facts have caused great distress, anger and resentments among the majority of white Americans who grew up working in the field and then in the factories but who are now jobless because many American companies have moved production abroad.

One of the most important tools in PR is Stakeholder’s mapping, Trump did this exceptionally well. Trump knew exactly who his target audience were and what their concerns were by using the data from the ‘data pool B’. They were the non-college lower middle working class, veterans of war and the evangelical churches.

In fact, Trump created an evangelical advisory board, which held calls with Trump’s campaign or RNC strategists every Monday morning since 2015 unlike Mrs. Clinton who relied on ‘data pool A’ and targeted every Americans with her message. She like many American elites pretended as if all is well.

The same scenario played out in the 2015 general election in Nigeria.

‘Data pool A’
Kept inflation at single digit.
Provided Al-majiri schools for Northern children.
Working towards reviving the railway lines.
Empowerment of youth through SURE-P

‘Data pool B’
Massive lost of lives and property due to Boko Haram insurgency in the North east.
Kidnapping of over 200 school girls by Boko Haram.
Unprecedented corruption with impunity among public office holders.

The Jonathan’s campaign team picked their facts from pool A while ignoring pool B but unfortunately for them the facts which mattered most are the ones in pool B where the campaign team of Buhari picked their message. We all know which worked out better.

Lesson for PR professionals

Brands or organizations rarely need to convince the majority; reaching the right public is the critical element of  success. This is the key importance of STAKEHOLDER’S MAPPING.

Prof. Fred Garcia in his insightful book, ‘THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION’ observed that for any communication to make meaningful impact we must find our audience.

2) *Tailor your message to reflect their concerns and questions*.

This is where Message mapping becomes inevitable. In other to capture the heart and mind of your target audience you must be able to design your message in such a way that it provokes actions or followership. And the most powerful effect of message mapping is that your audience will definitely go where you want them to go even if they don’t like you because they feel and believe they are acting in free will without being coerce.

(I have discussed the step by step method of Message mapping in my previous post)

Trump also looked authoritarian in is communication. This was not by accident; it is a style of communication that has been proven scientifically to be effective in the present situation of America.  According to the Premiumtimes, a new research shows that for people experiencing significant mental distress caused by adverse life events, authoritarianism could be psychologically protective.

So for Donald’s supporters “their brain responses are automatic and not influenced by logic or reason because there is security fear, job loss anxiety and resentment of politicians.
Trump’s strategy was to communicate his audience’s fear back to them in such a way that they feel they need to do something about it and the man they can use to get this done is him (Trump).

For instance,
Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary; he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United States.

It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America, well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with the heart and mind of the audience.

 Despite everything Trump said about the Latinos he was still able to secure 33% and 26% vote of the male and female Latinos respectively according to dailymail UK.

Trump was accused of seducing women even married women and he has been accused of saying all sort of negative things about women (he even called Mrs Clinton a nasty woman on a live debate) yet according to CBSnews Exit polls Trump secured 91% vote of the Republican women and also 49% vote of the independent white women (non partisan) compared to Mrs Clinton’s 41%.

This has nothing to do with being liked in fact CBSnews’ Exit polls also revealed that 20% of Trump’s voter thinks he is not a favourable candidate and 57% thinks he is not honest or trustworthy.

According to time.com,The evangelical voters accounted for a record 26% of the electorate on the November 8 election, and more than 80% of white born-again voters voted for Trump. Clinton received just 16% of the white evangelical vote.

Why did they voted for him you may ask?

Robert Jeffress, Southern Baptist pastor of First Dallas answered it correctly when he said, *“both Clinton’s ‘corruption’ and Trump’s commitment to anti-abortion judicial nominations were key factors for evangelical voters”.*

Another thing Trump got right in tailoring his message was his ‘slogan’ which is “We Will Make America Great Again” used by Reagan in the the 80’s (“Let’s Make America Great Again”). Trump was nailing it with this slogan unlike Clinton’s “Stronger Together”, and “Clinton For America”.

Just like Buhari’s “Change” slogan motivated more Nigerians than Jonathan’s “Moving Forward”.

Lesson for PR professionals

Communication can be more successful by identifying your stakeholder and tailoring your message to reflect you understand their concerns and pain.

This is why Prof. Fred Garcia in his insightful book, ‘THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION’ observed that for any communication to make meaningful impact the speaker must meet the audience where they are in order to move them to where he/she wants them to be’.

3) *Attract as much attention as possible by understanding what the media want.*

Here another wonderful tool comes to mind which is ‘Media Mapping’. Trump has been a frequent guest on 'talk shows' for decades and hosted NBC's Apprentice and its spin-off Celebrity Apprentice for 14 seasons. So, he understood perfectly well what the mainstream media loved and he gave them more than enough.

If you carefully analyze all the stories that made media headlines that have generated readership/viewership you will discover that they fall into three categories
CONFLICTS
CONTROVERSIES
SCANDALS

Now let us explore how Trump used this to his advantage

a. Invite an unpredictable guest.

Trailing in the polls to Ben Carson and Ted Cruz before the Iowa caucus, Trump needed to shake things up.  Sarah Palin, one time vice-presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska emerged from the political wilderness to give the Trump campaign a shot in the arm.

She endorsed Trump with a mystifying speech. *"They didn't want to talk about these issues until he brought them up. In fact, they've been wearing a, this, political correctness kind of like a suicide vest,"* she said among other things. For a whole day the focus was off his rivals.


b. Forge a (temporary) Alliance.

Trump partnered Ted Cruz to host a rally protesting against President Barack Obama's Iran deal in front of the US Capitol. "I like Donald Trump. He's bold; he's brash... I'm not interested in Republican-on-Republican violence," Cruz said in July. Ted helped Trump clear the crowded field of candidates, only to find himself the victim of Republican-on-Republican violence.


c. Throw someone under the bus.

Although, Trump started out as a friend of Ben Carson but when he discovered that Carson crept ahead of him in the polls as the Iowa caucus drew closer he changed his tone.

Trump went for the jugular calling him "pathological" and comparing him to child molester. Ouch.


d. Conflict, conflict, conflict.

 Before the election Trump had tussled with the New York Times and CNN (claiming they are biased),
Senator Elizabeth Warren,
House Speaker Paul Ryan,
British Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, just to name a few.

This generated a lot of reactions from different quarters and journalists reported all of them and in the process also gave Trump lots of coverage.



e. Stair the honey’s nest.

Trump got overwhelming media attention by making controversial statements against different race like Nigerians, Mexicans and Muslims. The entire world’s attention was on him. And some weeks to the election he started claiming the Democrates has planned to rig the election, saying he won’t accept the outcome of the election if Clinton wins. He successfully got Michele Obama and others talking about him in the process.

Michiel Maandag of thebrandbite.com described it masterfully when he said, “Trump uses language that the general public understands and relates to. He doesn’t just read off an autocue or give speeches that have been refined until there is no meaning left in them. People remember his soundbites and they stand out from the crowd – not just because they are offensive, but because of the type of language he uses. This is all part of his act.”



f. Never let go of your opponent’s scandal.

Trump never hesitated for a moment to take the advantage of the ‘email scandal’ that rocked Mrs Clinton's campaign. While Clinton and her PR team were working tediously to manage the crisis Trump was busy fuelling it. He kept insisting it must be investigated even when the CIA said they have cleared her. His effort paid off days to the election when the Director of CIA came out again that they will investigate Clinton’s email misconduct.

By many measurements, he has been successful. The New York Times in March estimated Trump has earned nearly $2 billion in earned media placements; more than double that of Hillary Clinton who had spent massively on Ads.

How did we know all Trump’s drama was to get earned media?

Trump started changing his earlier stands as soon as he won the election.                                  
According to the premiumtimes, before the election he said President Obama founded ISIS (now he is a nice person Donald would like to consult often);
He said he would throw out Obamacare (now, emmm, some of the pillars will be left intact);
He would erect a wall across the border with Mexico (now, hmmm….part of it will be fence). The count continues, and the world is getting more confused.

While this may not be something we should all encourage, the take home is that Donald Trump understood the biases the western media has for a special type of news. They love reporting conflicts, controversies and scandals (that is how they have reported Africa for decades) and that was their Achilles heel which Trump capitalized on to secure unprecedented media coverage.

Lesson for PR professionals

Do a thorough media mapping to understand the right way to approach each of the media.



4) *Target your message*

Communicate directly with your target audience or stakeholders.

Traditional news media companies in America have lost the power to control or direct public opinion. During the same-sex marriage debate in 2013, coverage by traditional media favored pro-equality views.

 However, discussions on social media were far more polarized and reflected overall public sentiment.

As earlier stated Trump created an evangelical advisory board, which held calls with Trump’s campaign or RNC strategists every Monday morning since the summer of 2015. He used the Social media of the pastors in his advisory board as well as his own to reach his target audience effectively.

Trump twitted late in the night constantly to reach his audience and with over 8 million Twitter followers and 7 million Facebook followers, he has the potential to reach more people than any cable news program.

According to marketingdive.com, Cambridge Analytica ran digital ad campaigns for Trump in order to reach undecided voters as announced in a company press release.

The company updated on a daily basis which voters were undecided and then divided these into 12 to 15 subgroups to create highly targeted messaging.

The digital push consisted of 4,000 individual digital ad campaigns backing the Republican candidate, reaching millions of unique viewers and totaling 1.5 billion impressions.

The strategy included native advertising, programmatic Lightbox ads, ad networks, search engines, Facebook, Twitter Conversational ads and Snapchat.

Lesson for PR professionals

Effective communication is not necessarily a product of spending heavily on Ad but the result of channeling the right information through the right means.


5) *Know when to eat the humble pie*.

After a video from 2005 of Trump making obscene comments and bragging about sexually abusing women was released, the Republican hopeful responded by releasing a video to express his regret and quickly add that that was when he was young and now he is a much more mature man.

He swiftly attacked the Clinton’s camp of playing dirty politics to divert the attention of the American people from the real truth and he went on to repeat everything he had been saying about job loss, immigration and so on.

Lesson for PR professionals

Even in crisis find a way to market your brand in a way that shows your brand cares for its audience.

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.

Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

THE ART OF POWERFUL QUESTIONS

 How to inspire Insight, Innovation and Action (part 2)
Ishola Ayodele

At the 2015 Nordic Business Forum,  John. C. Maxwell told the story of a great female basketball coach who had once invited him to the locker room during the halftime break to see how she handles the team. The coach leaves the players and goes to an adjoining room. The players have a blank marker board showing only three topics;
What did we do right?
What did we do wrong?
 What do we need to change?

One of the players wrote 2-3 things under each topic in about five minutes. After this the coach walks into the locker room, looks at the answers and gives a couple of comments – this in about three minutes. When Maxwell later asked the coach what was behind the exercise, he got an interesting answer.

During the first two years the coach was not successful. She told Maxwell that she was leading by assumption. The coach had thought that she and her players were on the same page, which ultimately wasn’t true.

In his insightful book, ‘The Knowledge Evolution’ Verna Allee wrote, *“A vital question, a creative question, rivets our attention. All the creative power of our minds is focused on the question. Knowledge emerges in response to these compelling questions. They open us to new worlds.”*

In his bestselling new book, ‘A More Beautiful Question: The Power Of Inquiry To Spark Breakthrough Ideas’, Warren Berger argues that while we're all hungry for better answers, we must first learn to ask the right questions. In this well-researched book which covers companies like Google, Neflix, Foursquare and many top rated companies, he came to the conclusion that, *“Smart entrepreneurs ask greats questions that reveal overlooked inefficiencies”.*

And by the way the title of John Maxwell speech at the Nordic Business Forum was “Don’t lead with assumptions; leaders ask great questions”.

So what are the characteristics of a great question?

A powerful question is a question which

• generates curiosity in the listener.

• stimulates reflective conversation.

• is thought-provoking.

• surfaces underlying assumptions.

• invites creativity and new possibilities.

• generates energy and forward movement.

• channels attention and focuses inquiry.

• stays with participants.

• touches a deep meaning.

• evokes more questions.

According to Tom Pohlmann and Neethi Mary Thomas in their article ‘Relearning the Art of Asking Question’ published by the Harvard business review, powerful questions can be divided into four Clarifying,  Adjoining, Funneling, and Elevating depending on the goal you want to achieve.

Here is the summary.

*Clarifying questions:*
They help us better understand what has been said. In many conversations, people speak past one another.

Asking clarifying questions can help uncover the real intent behind what is said.

These help us understand each other better and lead us toward relevant follow-up questions.
“Can you tell me more?” and
“Why do you say so?” both fall into this category.

People often don’t ask these questions, because they tend to make assumptions and complete any missing parts themselves.

*Adjoining questions:*
They  are used to explore related aspects of the problem that are ignored in the conversation.
Questions such as, “How would this concept apply in a different context?” or “What are the related uses of this technology?” fall into this category.

For example, asking “How would these insights apply in Canada?” during a discussion on customer life-time value in the U.S. can open a useful discussion on behavioral differences between customers in the U.S. and Canada. Our laser-like focus on immediate tasks often inhibits our asking more of these exploratory questions, but taking time to ask them can help us gain a broader understanding of something.

*Funneling questions:*
They are used to dive deeper. We ask these to understand how an answer was derived, to challenge assumptions, and to understand the root causes of problems.
 Examples include: “How did you do the analysis?” and “Why did you not include this step?”

Funneling can naturally follow the design of an organization and its offerings, such as, “Can we take this analysis of outdoor products and drive it down to a certain brand of lawn furniture?” Most analytical teams – especially those embedded in business operations – do an excellent job of using these questions.

*Elevating questions:*
They raise broader issues and highlight the bigger picture. They help you zoom out.

Being too immersed in an immediate problem makes it harder to see the overall context behind it. So you can ask,
“Taking a step back, what are the larger issues?” or
“Are we even addressing the right question?”

For example, a discussion on issues like margin decline and decreasing customer satisfaction could turn into a broader discussion of corporate strategy with an elevating question: “Instead of talking about these issues separately, what are the larger trends we should be concerned about? How do they all tie together?”

These questions take us to a higher playing field where we can better see connections between individual problems.

The challenge of leadership in this 21st century cannot be met by providing all the answers to a problem but by asking powerful questions that will provoke insightful thinking that can bring about great innovation and inspire action in the followers. This is why in Germany, the job title *Direktor Grundsatzfragen* translates as *“Director of Fundamental Questions.”*  Some of the larger German companies like Daimler, Bayer, Siemens, SAP and the rest  have an entire department of Grundsatzfragen.

These are the people who are always thinking about what the next questions will be.

Little wonder  Rilee Goldberg observed, in his evergreen book ‘THE ART OF THE QUESTION’,
  *“A PARADIGM SHIFT OCCURS WHEN A QUESTION IS ASKED INSIDE THE CURRENT PARADIGM THAT CAN ONLY BE ANSWERED FROM OUTSIDE IT.”*

Which type of questions do you ask most and how well has it work for you?

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below.
Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.
Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

THE SOCRATES CULTURE; The Secret To Making Good Decisions

How Great Leaders Make Great Decisions
Ishola Ayodele

A man once approached the great thinker of antiquity, Socrates and asked him a great question that has benefited so many people in the world today.

Man: Oh wise one what is the secret to making great decisions?

Socrates answered,  *"Ask great questions"*

In 1959 the Soviet Union (now Russia) beat the United States in the race to the moon when it landed the first man-made object on the moon.

The Then President of America Dwight Eisenhower asked a great question, "how can we be the first country to put a man on the moon?". He was told to put more funding into mathematics and Sciences which he did.

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon and Neil Armstrong an American walked on the moon thereby making the United States of America the first ever nation to successfully landed a human being on the surface of the moon.

Peter Drucker, the great scholar on Management remarked,
*"My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions."*

Jim Collins, the business leadership guru, wrote extensive about leading with question especially in his book 'Good to Great' where he wrote about a mechanism for moving a company from good to great.

 This mechanism he called *the Council* which is a composition of the right set of people headed by the CEO. And how does the mechanism called council work? *By asking questions which are germane to the success of the company* and find finding answers through dialogue and debate.

How can we master the art of asking the right questions?

Michael Lindenmayer, elaborates on the
seven basic ingredients to nurture the Socratic culture of asking a great questions in his article published in the forbe magazine.

*Here are the seven ingredients*

1. *Quest for the best answers*
Ray Dalio said, “Remember that your goal is to find the best answer; not to give the best one you have,”.

Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater, one of the best performing hedge funds in the world. His firm is guided by a set of principles and at the core of those principles is an intense commitment to asking great questions. From how he recruits, to the day to day management, there is a 360 degree culture of asking thought provoking questions.

2. *Be humble; Admit you don’t know*.
You need to check your ego at the door when you go to work. It gets in the way of finding the best answers.
Once your ego is checked, you can be humble and admit when you do not know the answer. This returns us to the questing path.

3. *Build stamina; Get a brain work out*
Most people can handle a few questions before they experience cognitive overload. In other words, their brain freezes and they experience emotional fatigue.
Too many questions with too few answers kicks in the flight response. People can shut down. The good news is that people can build up their stamina so that they can handle more questions.

4. *Empower everyone*
Want to unleash the potential of your team? Yes? Then you will have to ask questions and be up for questing for the best answers.
I recently had lunch with Art Gensler, the founder of the largest design firm in the world. I asked him how he was able to control management at such a large scale. He said, “I don’t.” He applies the power of guiding principles. And he does this through a culture of questions.

5. *Concentrate*
If you want good answers, you need to concentrate on getting them. Our brains are splintered by multitasking.
Stanford Professor Clifford Nass’s research showcases how multitasking both reduces the speed of decision making as well as the quality of the decisions generated.

6. *Questions for the three P’s*
The three P’s are: possibilities,
probabilities,
and priorities.
These three are sequentially linked. Apply different questions to the different categories. Certain questions generate possibilities, a different set generate Probability.

7. *Know thyself*
Having a Socratic culture is great. It also means everyone should embrace the Socratic ideal to “Know Thyself.” First you need to understand yourself before you can understand others.

A Chinese proverb says "He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever."

The eternal truth of life is that every problem has a solution, all you need to do is to *ask the right questions* and be attentive enough to hear the right answer.

Little wonder Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit observed that we should *"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers"*

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below.

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.

Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

BRAND ADMIRATION;Why A Customer feels A Personal Connection To A Company

Building a Business People Love, Trust and Respect.
Ishola Ayodele

There is this old saying that readily comes to mind when thinking about human relationships: there are three types of people that we never forget.
First are those who stand with us and help us through difficult times;
second are those who leave us in our difficult times;
and third are those who force us into difficult times.

In early 2015, Comcast made a big announcement : The much-maligned company planned to finally right its many years of wrongs by investing *$300 million* into improving its notoriously awful customer service. The company's press release , as is often the case with press releases, made big promises, and it sounded surprisingly penitent.

The reaction to the announcement was,
 sarcastic chuckles,
 and lots of "I'll believe it when I see it"


And then there were reactions like this on Twitter :

*@EPB_Chattanooga I wouldn't go back to Comcast for $300 million*.

This was unlike *Virgin America*—which has finished atop the annual Airline Quality Ratings for four consecutive years. Check this recent exchange via Twitter between VirginAmerica and one of its customers.

Dom heyberg twittered @VirginAmerica $50 flight compensation credit before I could even complain about last night's flight. Good job

VirginAmerica responded @domheyberg Thank you for understanding

Then Dom replied @VirginAmerica No worries. Shit happens.

The difference in response of customers to these two companies is simply the level of Brand Admiration.

brand admiration—a new concept about to be introduced by marketing researchers C. Whan Park, Deborah J. MacInnis, and Andreas B. Eisingerich in their forthcoming book,
Brand Admiration: Building a Business People Love .

brand admiration can be defined as unconditional love, trust and respect for a company.

Some benefits of Brand Admiration include:

Valuable repeat-purchase patterns.

Unabashed public promotion of the brand.

Higher tolerance for mistakes and missteps.

Stronger talent acquisition and retention.

Improved employee morale.

Expanded alliance and partnership opportunities

According to Professor Andreas Eisingerich one of the authors.
"brands build the strongest and most durable relationships with customers when they offer the following three; Enable, Entice and Enrich customers.

1. *Customers find value in brands that enable them*.
Such brands solve customers’ problems. They remove barriers, eliminate frustrations, assuage anxieties, and reduce fear. They provide peace of mind. With the brand as a solution, customers feel empowered to take on challenges in their personal and professional lives.

2. *Customers also seek benefits that entice them*.
Enticement benefits stimulate customers’ minds, their senses, and thei hearts. They replace work with play, lac of pleasure with gratification, boredom with excitement, and sadness with feelings of warmth.

3. *Customers seek benefits that enrich them and their sense of who they are as people*
 Customers want to feel as if they are good people who are doing good things i the world. They want to act in ways tha are consistent with their beliefs and hopes. They want to feel as if they’re pa of a group in which others accept and respect them. They want to feel proud o their identities and where they came from.

From this I think Brand Admiration hinges on a company's methodic and strategic commitment to developing three key pillars:

1. *TRUST*
Trust is achieved when a brand helps its admirers feel empowered, in-control, confident, or relieved of a particular pain point.

2. *LOVE*
Love is fostered when a brand stimulates senses of warmth, gratitude, nostalgia, and empathy.

3. *RESPECT*
 Respect is earned when a brand's beliefs, principles, hopes, and vision are in harmonious alignment with the people it serves.

It is imperative for these three components of Trust, Love and Respect for a meaningful brand admiration.

In human relationships, trust alone perhaps makes us shake someone else’s hands.
What about love? Love needs to be accompanied by trust and respect for a relationship to be healthy and sustainable.

Love without trust is like a car with no fuel. We can make it go by keep pushing it, but it won’t go very far.

How about respect? Does respect alone carry a relationship? Respect alone may not trigger strong behavioural motivations. Respect without love is likely to involve an arms-length relationship.

Respect may make us bow at someone from a distance. Without love, a relationship only based on respect won’t have that special lasting bond.

This is just a peep into the book. I am sure this book *Brand Admiration* will  definitely enrich our understanding of Branding.

Marketing guru, Seth Godin describes a brand *as a set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that taken together, account for a customer's decision to choose one product or service over another*

Building Trust, Love and Respect is the only to achieve this.

MOVING FROM CRISIS TO OPPORTUNITY; How Buhari could have turned Crisis into an Opportunity

A lesson from Hilary Clinton
Ishola Ayodele (Result Oriented Communication expert)

In 1998, the secret sexual affair between the then President Clinton and a White house intern Monica Lewinsky was exposed. After the initial denial, Mr Clinton later admitted publicly.

This is a shameful act and a big crisis for the US presidency as well as the Clinton family. There were lots of condemnations and call for his impeachment.

Suddenly, the whole nation was thrown into bewilderment when Mrs Clinton came out and publicly said, she forgave her husband.

According to inquisitr.com, "Hillary Clinton explained that she forgave Bill Clinton because of the love she feels for him, which is a gift that comes from her faith.

This statement set the tone for another view point for Mr Clinton's sex scandal. But Mrs Clinton wasn't done she went on to blame herself for her husband’s misdeeds.

According to UK Telegraph, Mrs Clinton had insisted that the sex between Mr Clinton and the then-21-year-old Monica Lewinsky had no “real meaning” and said *she had not been “sensitive enough” to her husband’s emotional state.*

Suddenly, the whole nation forgave Mr Clinton and he was allowed to complete his term.

Hilary Clinton's gain

I. She gained  perception of a loyal wife and an epitome of partnership.

II. She gained great popularity and was also perceived as a woman of faith.

III. She won an election to represent the city of New York despite not being originally from New York.

IV. She is on the verge of becoming the first female US president.

*Aisha's Buhari's comments*

Mrs Buhari in an interview with the BBC said her husband did not know many top government appointees in his cabinet. She also accused them of not sharing the vision of her husband’s party, the  All Progressives Congress party.

Although she did not mention any names, she however asked people to watch out for them on the television programmes.
And she said she won't support  Buhari's reelection in 2019 if things don't change.

According to the Vanguard, President Buhari while standing beside the German Chancellor Angela Merkel  responded jocularly
*“I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.”*

PR Lessons

1) *Orientate don't react to a crisis*

According to the businessinsider, Mrs Clinton went through hell during this period of her husband’s sex scandal.

A reactionary action would have been to divorce her husband but this would have aggravated the situation as it may fuel the impeachment call from a section of Americans.

Buhari reacted to Aisha's comments and caused more damage. That statement diminishes the role of women and may make the international community see him has having no respect for women.

The cure for a chronic headache can't be chopping off of head.


2) *Resist the temptation to Blame,  Condemn or Ridicule anybody during Crisis*

What is most needed during crisis is not criticism but leadership. Critics emphasis the magnitude of the damage and hardship a crisis will bring but leaders proffer the solutions to crises.

One way to start is to avoid blaming or ridiculing people in a crisis but to assume responsibility for what happened. The Clinton's crisis needed a leader and Hilary stepped up to the leadership position. This is why most Americans want her to lead them as President.

President Buhari ridiculed his wife rather than addressing the issue. He could have just said, *"Well, that is her opinion and I respect her perspective on my appointees. Her support was crucial to my winning the 2015 election, When I get back we shall discuss it further in our bedroom(jokingly)*

This shows that the president accept criticism, respect other people's opinions and his willing to engage his critics in a discussion.
(good qualities of leadership)

3) *Get on the field*
This is where you do all the repair work. Once a crisis strike you must get busy doing all the right things, meeting all the right people, assembling all the right set of people needed to manage this crisis and most importantly start saying all the right things that need to be said to the right set of people and at the right time they really need to hear it.

Hilary consulted wide and came to realize that deserting her husband in his time of trial may have some negative consequences on her future political ambition.

Thus, getting on the field to repair her husband’s reputation as well as her family's has paid off for her.

Immediately, Aisha granted the interview, the President should have consulted PR experts on the implications of that interview and the best ways to respond to reporters.

I think his media team failed him they should have anticipated all the questions Aisha's interview might generated and most logical answers to them.

4) *Use Crisis as a leverage to demonstrate some great virtues that will win you public confidence and respect*

Samsung's recall of its Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is expected to cost the company about *$5.8billion* according to marketdrive. This act has been praised and commended as a way to regain customer's trust.

On February 6, 2014, General Motors (GM) recalled about 800,000 of its small cars due to faulty ignition switches.

Hilary Clinton leverage on the Monica Lewinsky crisis to show Americans she is truly a dependable friend, a loving, loyal and compassionate wife and a courageous leader. These are the type of virtues Americans love in a hero (check out Hollywood films).

This was wise because she used that crisis in 1998 to position herself as a suitable candidate for the American president in 2016.

Actually Aisha's comments presented the President an opportunity to put himself in good light and to be perceive as a true great president by the International community but unfortunately he missed it.

President Buhari could have responded this way.
*"Well, that is her opinion and I respect her perspective of my appointees. Her support was crucial to my winning the 2015 election, When I get back we shall discuss it further in our bedroom(jokingly)*

Leveraging this opportunity he could have gone further by saying

*but on a serious note, to rebuild Nigeria and grow our economy we must look beyond political lines and prioritize competence.*
(or something better than this; anything that will sell him to the world as being committed to turning Nigeria around)

This would have make the International community perceived him as truly committed to the growth and development of Nigeria. And indeed a great leader.

John F. Kennedy said, "When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity*.

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.
Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

45-6-3-2 RULE; The Formula For Effective Rumour Management

When a rumour threatens your reputation or business; What do you do? 
Ishola Ayodele

Some years back there was a report that two people of the same family died after eating indomie noodles in one northern state in Nigeria. Many people started avoiding eating indomie noodles as the word going round was that indomie noodles now contained some poison that kills people. This resulted in decline in the patronage of indomie noodles and some lost in revenue to the company.
After two month of investigation without finding any credible source of this report it became clear it was a rumour.

Dufil Group, the manufacturer of indomie noodles make a very big mistake in keeping mute in the face of the spread of that rumour. And it cost them to lose some significant market share to Dangote noodles in the north.

According to my mobile dictionary,  A
statement or claim of questionable accuracy, from no known reliable source, usually spread by word of mouth.

Two Professors, Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman in their priceless book, 'The Psychology of Rumor' wrote, "Rumor travels when events have importance in the lives of individuals, and when the news received about them is either lacking or subjectively ambiguous. The ambiguity may arise from the fact that the news is not clearly reported, or from the fact that conflicting versions of the news have reached the individual, or from his incapacity to comprehend the news he receives".

The fact that rumour usually spread because of it importance to the people who spread or receive it makes it very important for us as communicators to understand the psychology behind *rumour* in order to be able to advise our clients effective on how to manage it especially if there is a possibility of it leading to a big crisis.

Rumour just like news has a particular life cycle within which
1) it can cause great reputational damage, decline in sales or lost of customers.
2) it can be quickly contained and permanently debunked before it could cause any damage.

In his thought provoking book, 'The power of Communication' NYU's Adjunct Professor of management and President of logos Consulting Group, Fred Helio Garcia wrote about the 45-6-3-2 rule of Crisis Management which I find very useful for effectively managing rumour.

The 45-6-3-2 RULE
This is a reality-based observation of the news cycle and points at which one can influence the cycle.

This is what it means.

There are specific points in a news cycle where it is more possible to kill a negative and inaccurate story(rumour), and to control and diminish a negative and partially accurate story.

Miss one of these points, you will suffer reputational damage. Worse, the distance between the points grows in an almost exponential fashion, as does the spread of bad news and likely reputational damage.

This is how it works.

45 Minutes:
Within the first 45 minutes, give or take, of a news cycle you have maximum influence on the outcome of a story.

If a rumor prompts a reporter to begin working on a story, the first 45 minutes are critical. During this time, only a small number of people, and possibly only one reporter, knows about the rumor and is working on a story.

If, on the other hand, you are unable to respond to the reporter within the first 45 minutes or so of the news cycle, a number of very powerful negative things happen.

First, the original reporter is likely to be working the phones trying to get confirmation of the rumor, in the process retelling it to sources, who themselves can pass the rumor along to other reporters.

Second, given the proliferation of all-news television, radio, and the internet, the chances are high that the story will break quickly.


6 Hours:
Once a story crosses a wire service, is broadcast on television or radio, or appears on the internet, it is, at least for the moment, out of your control.

It may still be possible eventually to control the rumor and even to kill the story. But now it will much more difficult. And it takes much longer.

As a general rule, once a story is broadcast you can expect to have at least six hours of negative coverage.

During these six hours, more and more reporters are coming to the story, and the story is being rebroadcast on competing media outlets. More and more people become aware of the rumor, and it grows exponentially.

If a story appeared on one all-news cable television, the odds are high that it will appear on others and on the regular network or local TV news stations that night, and in drive time radio. Your customers, employees, suppliers, competitors, regulators, and local community are made aware of the rumor and can begin to act on it, to your reputational and business disadvantage.

If you are unable to control the story during this phase of the cycle, however, expect several days of negative news.


3 Days:
Once a story hits the daily newspapers, you can expect it to be alive for several days. During the day the story appears there is likely to be television and radio commentary about the story, as well as gossip among your customers, employees, and competitors.

The day following publication, newspapers that missed the story on day one are likely to pick it up as their own day one story. Even newspapers that carried the story on day one can carry a second-day story of reaction to the first story.

And those who come late will themselves carry their own second-day stories on day three.

 But by this time you will have suffered several days of reputational damage and will have seen a much wider range of people exposed to the negative rumor.

If you cannot control the story during these three days, expect at least two weeks of negative coverage.


2 Weeks:
After the daily newspapers have had their run, there is still a further news cycle that includes weekly and semi-monthly magazines, industry trade publications, weekend newspaper wrap-up sections, and the Sunday morning talk shows.

If a story has been alive for three days in the daily press it is unlikely to escape some notice from the weeklies and semi-monthlies.

If, however, you are unable to control the story in this timeframe, expect continuous coverage, coverage of Clinton-Lewinsky or OJ Simpson proportions.
A company is unlikely to recover from this kind of scrutiny.

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.
Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

THE PARADOX OF CHOICE; How too many choices make us unhappy

Understanding how your choice is being influenced and how to choose wisely.
Ishola Ayodele

A popular presenter while discussing   about her choice of an idea husband for her on a popular TV show in Nigeria said, she wanted a man who is tall, handsome and dark skinned but she ended up marrying a light skinned man. Will this have any effect in her life?

Prof. William Glasser in his powerful book *Choice Theory*  postulated that "unhappiness results from making misguided choices".
He believed that by making better choices, we can maintain better relationships which will help us to lead a more fulfilled lives

*Why do we choose?*

From what we have all learnt in Economics, human wants are unlimited and the means to satisfy them are limited or scarce. Consequently we have to choose.

But the real question is.

*Do we really choose by  ourselves or others choose for us?*

Almost 99.9% of us will say YES.

Research in the field of cognitive science, neuroscience, social psychology and even Marketing have all proven that majority of people do not choose by themselves but are influenced to choose.

Why do you think advertisers bombard us with so much adverts on radio,TV, posters, Internet even on our phones.

Professor Barry in his very insightful and research based book *"The Paradox of choice"* identified three important factors.

1. Many people's choice is based on the perception of other people.

That is sometimes we make our choice because of how it will make people think about us.
For Instance
A shirt that could sell for N1500 in other markets maybe sold for N3500 in a boutique.

Some people find it difficult to marry someone who is lower in social status compared to them even when they acknowledged that the person is nice and responsible because of what their rich friends will say or think about them.


2. The ideal choice syndrome.

Many people are always looking for the perfect choice. The perfect house, job, car even the perfect man/lady. Prof. Barry described these people as the *Miximiser.*

He advised people to be a *satisficer*, not a maximizer.

Maximizing is worse than perfectionism
because perfectionists are striving to
become better whereas maximizers are always seeking the best and can never
obtain it.

They are always comparing themselves with others. And  Comparisons detract from satisfaction, especially social comparisons. We see some aspect of something that is better for someone else and it reduces our happiness with what we have.

“Satisficers” are those who settle for a
choice that is “good enough” for them
These people are generally happier with
their choice, and spend less time choosing, leaving them free to enjoy other things.


3.  Choice involves loss.

For everything we choose we lose the opportunity of experiencing another thing. What the economists called "forgone alternative".

And that is why the people who always want to choose the ideal spouse or thing are usually never really happy with their choice. They will always feel a sense of regret whenever they see someone choose something better than what they have chosen.

For instance
A miximiser man who want a tall beautiful and fair ladies but end up with a beautiful dark lady who is not so tall because she has the best character among all the ladies he has met. May always feel unhappy whenever he sees a friend marry a tall beautiful fair lady.

Let me add this

4. Cognitive Bias

This is the way an option is presented. Research has proven that this has an unquenchable impact on how or what we think, choose or do. As a communicator this is a very powerful tool to master. (I will discuss this later)

No wonder Prof. Sheena Iyengar, (the inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Division at Columbia Business School) in her wonderful book 'The Art of Choice' wrote *"Choice is more than picking 'x' over 'y.' It is a responsibility to separate the meaningful and the uplifting from the trivial and the disheartening. It is the only tool we have that enables us to go from who we are today to who we want to be tomorrow".*

Here are some suggestions from my research on how to make us choose better.

1 - Choose when to choose. Make rules
and pre-decide where appropriate.

2 - Be a chooser/satisficer not a picker/maximizer.
Pickers pick from options, choosers evaluate
needs.

3 - Try to be satisfied and contented more than being a maximizer. The ideal situation or person doesn't exist. Our happiness comes from loving what we have.

4 - Think of the opportunity costs. Don't compare too many options.
Too many information will end up confusing you.

A neuroscientist Dr. David Levitin described it as *'information overload'* in his book *'The organized mind'*.

5 - Make decisions non-reversible.
When we think there is an option to back out, it stays on our mind.

6 - Have an attitude of gratitude.
Make a list of 5 things you are  thankful to God for every night.

7 - Regret less. Remember that the goodness in what you have may not be in what others have.

8 - Anticipate adaptation.
Think of how good things are right now and  work towards making it better.

9 - Control expectations.
Don't expect too much from you choice be it spouse or other things.

10 - Curtail social comparison.
Think of what makes you happy right now. Don't compare your husband or wife or possession to others. Just focus on making life more meaningful and enjoyable for you and your family.

11 - Learn to love constraints.
Work inside of them. They will strengthen you with the right lessons you need to make better choices in future.

12. Make decisions in the morning after meal .

In the paper "Extraneous factors in judicial decisions ", three researchers (Danzinger, Levav and Avnaim-Pesso, 2010) analyzed the outcomes of more than 1,000 parole judgments in an Israeli court and found more than half of judgments being made favorably in the morning, yet by the end of the session, the rate of favorable judgments reduced drastically.
This reduced ability to make consistent decisions after decision is known as 'decision fatigue'.

Intriguingly, the researchers found that once the judges took a meal break, the favorable decision rate returned practically back to normal.

Another Psychologist Roy Baumeister may have found a cause for this when he identified a link between our blood glucose levels and our ego levels, which are depleted when we are made to make decisions repeatedly.
Consequently, some expert we make our decision to choose around 11am when our blood glucose is still high.


Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below.

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.
Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

THE TORCH OF FREEDOM; Invoking The Desired Actions

It is not what you say but how you say it. 
Ishola Ayodele (ANIPR)

 William J. Brennan, Jr. once said, "We look to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time".

Before 1928 only a handful of women smoke cigarette mostly in secret. In 1904 a woman named Jennie Lasher was sentenced to thirty days for smoking in front of her children.

In 1928 George Washington Hill, the president of the American Tobacco Company, realized the potential market that could be found in women and said, ““It will be like opening a gold mine right in our front yard.”

Hill hired, Edward Bernays to encourage women to smoke in public despite social taboos. Bernays consulted psychoanalyst A. A. Brill whose research shows that the natural desire for  women to smoke is being repressed by social taboos which he termed "The torch of freedom".

Bernays hire a group of elegant women for an  Easter Sunday Parade in 1929. He told journalists before the parade that the women were going to light *"Torches of Freedom"*. In front of thousands of New Yorkers all the elegant women light up their cigarettes and smoked.

       The Results

1) Media Attention
This *Torches of Freedom* got a huge media attention and generated lots of discussions and debates in different quarters and it was instrumental to breaking the social taboo of women smoking in public.

2) In 1923 women only purchased 5% of cigarettes sold,

But after the this parade in 1929 it  increased to 12%, 18.1% in 1935 and this percentage peaked in 1965 at 33.3%.

*The Lesson*

This is a clear indication of the power of framing.

Edward Bernays who is regarded as the father of Public Relations masterfully framed something considered immoral, indecent and socially unacceptable ideology and framed it as a desire for freedom.

*Framing* is a way of presenting an idea to the audience in such a way that you influence how they understand or evaluate it.

*Framing effects*
framing effects refer to behavioral or attitudinal strategies and/or outcomes that are due to how a given piece of information is being framed in public discourse.

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman explored how different phrasing affected participants' responses to a choice in a hypothetical life and death situation in 1981.

Treatment A (Positive)
 "Saves 200 lives"

Treatment B (Negative)
"400 people will die"

 Treatment A was chosen by 72% of participants when it was presented with positive framing ("saves 200 lives") dropping to only 22% when the same choice was presented with negative framing ("400 people will die").

In Other research

1) 93% of PhD students registered early when a penalty fee for late registration was emphasized, with only 67% doing so when this was presented as a discount for earlier registration.

2) 62% of people disagreed with allowing "public condemnation of democracy", but only 46% of people agreed that it was right to "forbid public condemnation of democracy".

3) they are more likely to enjoy meat labeled 75% lean meat as opposed to 25% fat,

4) or use condoms advertised as being 95% effective as opposed to having a 5% risk of failure.

*Principles of effective framing*
According to communication experts three things are essential for effective framing.

1) *Placement*

 Effective communication is achieved by connecting with the right people at the right time and with the right message.

 That’s why  communicators must research their target audience to figure out how to send relevant messages that will resonate with them.
This is what PR guru, Prof. Fred Garcia described in his book *the  power of communication* as meeting the audience where they are. 

So the task for PR practitioners is how to meet the audience where they are physically, psychologically, geographically and most importantly emotionally.

Oreo Milk Chocolate cookies got their  placement right with its Ad
*Power Out? No Problem* tweet at the 2012 Super Bowl, when the lights went out and the game stopped for 20 minutes — and 62,000 people were engaged by a tiny message about a cookie.


2) *Approach*

Communicators basically use three ways to present information; messages are presented using
a. Gain or Loss

b. Anchor effect

c. Bandwagon effect

Recently, a 2004 study conducted by Stanford University political science professors asked respondents if they support or oppose allowing an extremist group to hold a rally. When framed in terms of *freedom of expression*, the majority supported the group’s rights;
And when it was framed in terms of *risk of violence*, the majority opposed permitting the rally. Again, data shows that communicators can control public perception and decisions by strategically framing the messaging of an issue.

3) *Words*

The choice of words people use can be a clue to understanding their viewpoint. Words are powerful, they can invoke *actions* or *reactions*.  September 11 may be just a date to  you but it means more to a person who lost a father during the September 11 terrorist's attack in US.

President Obama's use of *Stupid* to describe the Cambridge Police department.

Rather than saying, Nigeria came 16th in the Paraolympics. We say, *Nigeria was among the top 20 teams in Paraolympics.

Being 5th in the class can be made better framing it as *being among the 5 best students in the class*

The Elements of a frame 

Credible messenger 
People listen to knowledgeable and trustworthy messengers. While it’s nice to have likable or familiar messengers, credibility is most important. For example, the public will likely believe a medical doctor when the issue is about health care.

Numbers in context.
Facts alone aren’t compelling. Unless numbers tell a story, they won’t mean anything to your audience. Most people need cues. They can’t judge the size or meaning of numbers unless they’re related to something more familiar. For example, the population of Lagos State is about 20million will not invoke the same thinking as saying the population of Lagos State is 10 times that of Jamaica. The sun’s radius is 432,450 miles, may be more interesting if you frame it like this, “you could line up 109 Earths across the face of the sun”.

Showing how things connect.
Draw clear and concrete connections between a problem and its cause. People are more engaged and supportive when they understand the causes of, and solutions to, a problem. They get “compassion fatigue” when they only hear about suffering (symptoms) or about the reasons they should care (worthiness).

Ted Cruz, the U.S Senator understood the power of framing so well that he observed that, "In both law and politics, I think the essential battle is the meta-battle of framing the narrative". 

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below.

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.
Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

The Commandments Of Damage Control

When Crisis Strikes, Your Next Step
Ishola Ayodele

On April 20, 2010, in the Macondo Prospect oil field about 40 miles (60 km) southeast of the Louisiana coast where the *British Petroleum* *BP* hired Transocean to drill for oil on it behalf an explosion occurred.

The explosion killed 11 workers and injured 17 others. The explosion caused the Deepwater Horizon to burn and sink. The same blowout that caused the explosion also caused a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the world, and the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Facing the US Commission of enquiry BP CEO, Tony Hayward blamed Transocean for the accident and Transocean also pointed accusing finger at BP.

BP faced massive criticism that battered their reputation so much that the board of BP had to sack Tony Hayward in less than 3 month after the accident.

Whenever a crisis occur the next thing should be *damage control* not blame game. The people can forgive mistake but they will never forgive irresponsibility.

Here are 5 Commandments of Damage Control

I. *Full Disclosure*

Everything that can come out, will come out. All too often it’s the drip, drip, drip that causes most of the lasting damage because it leads to suspicions and reporter digging around. Observe the 3T rule.
a. Tell it now
b. Tell it all
c. Tell at once.
If you don't use the *The first mover advantage* others will define your crisis for you.

This is why Abraham Lincoln said, " I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts".


II. *Speak to Your Core Audience*

Determine and quickly engage your the key Stakeholders. Ask yourself *what will responsible people expect a responsible individual/organization to do in this circumstances?*


III. *Don’t Feed the Fire*

Keep your calm, don't lose your cool not even in the face of media attack.
It’s human nature to succumb to the pressures of the moment that push you into making the situation worse. Resist that pull.


IV. *Get Ready For the Crash*

Be prepared with  detailed answers to tough questions. The smallest discrepancy can get magnified into the biggest problem.

This is more reason why
a. You should have an effective and comprehensive crisis management plan before hand.
b. You should have a sound media training.
c. Your PR firm must be proactive to have in place *MPSCC* (Media Mapping for Strategic Crisis Communication)


V. *Act Responsibly*

Ensure that you take purposeful actions towards resolving the crisis as most importantly get the right message out about what you are doing. And most importantly you must ensure the audience are actually hearing what you want them to hear and not what they think you said.

Your message must be
a. Clear
b. Coincides
c. Consistent
Throughout the period of the crisis.

Take the advice of Theodore Roosevelt,
"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing"


*My take*

*A crisis can either be a problem or an opportunity*.

*Crisis is inevitable, it is always what you do next that determines whether it becomes a problem or an opportunity*.

 John F. Kennedy observed that When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below.

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.
He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.
Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com

Priceless Crisis Communication Lessons From 9/11 pt 2

Precious Lessons We Can Learn From Successful Crisis Communication Of Some Companies During The Disaster Of The World Trade Center Terrorist Attack From Paul Agenti.

Previous page 

Stay Focused on the Business
“Everyone wanted to know what they could do in the wake of 9/11,” says Russell Lewis. “At the New York Times Company, no one had to even ask that question. Our mission is to put out the best newspaper we can so that readers can be as informed as possible. Just like a trauma surgeon, this is what we train for. There was no question that our employees felt that their job had meaning. And in the end, the Times received Pulitzer Prizes for its 9/11 reporting.”
A focus on work, in fact, can be enormously helpful to employees in a time of crisis. It provides an outlet for their desire to help, gets them back into a normal routine, fosters their pride in the company and what they do, and builds strong bonds between themselves and their customers, many of whom desperately need the company to keep their products and services flowing.
According to Elizabeth Heller Allen, vice president of corporate communications at Dell, “the key was finding an outlet for our employees’ desire to help.” The urgency of getting some 75 of Dell’s customers at Ground Zero and others in the DC area back in business pulled the staff together. At the same time, the senior leadership knew that only a revitalized staff would be able to deliver on Dell’s strong reputation for customer service. A Dell document stated that the objective of its response plan was “to increase employee understanding of how the September 11 terrorist attacks affected Dell’s customers and business and how Dell would respond.” But, other company documents showed, top management knew that Dell’s employees could assist affected customers only if they had a sense of security themselves.
Dell’s business model, which dispenses with the middleman, puts the firm directly in touch with its thousands of customers. Because of that direct contact, employees know exactly what these customers need and want. “We have complete records of what we’ve sold to every customer, so we knew what they had lost,” said Allen. “While it meant working around the clock to get the computers configured with the correct software, It was our way of giving back.”
Other employees worked those hours to pack and ship systems to the affected customers, who could place orders 24/7. Dell also established service and response teams that customers could reach through dedicated phone lines and the company’s Web site, which gave instructions for obtaining immediate assistance.
“Reaching out to employees struggling with shock, grief, and anger with a more family-like tone enabled us to focus those feelings on responding to our customers’ urgent needs. Maintaining that tone with regular updates more firmly than ever linked our customer-experience strategy to our teams’ everyday work,” says Rollins.
Months after 9/11, the company tried to measure how effective these strategies were. It determined that Dell Helping Rebuild America, an internal Web site, received 54,947 hits in its first two months. The site averaged 603 hits per day, and had 11,016 unique visitors during that period, almost a third of the workforce. In addition, the company asked for feedback from employees and found that 90% thought that Web casts from the CEO and COO during the crisis were helpful and relevant to their jobs and the organization.
Starbucks displayed a similar mixture of head and heart. The chain of coffee shops had a total of 250 branches in New York City’s five boroughs, four of them adjacent to Ground Zero. “A major part of what’s helped us through this was engaging in the relief effort,” Marty Annese, a senior vice president, told a trade publication. The initial “instinctive” response of the company’s crisis management team, according to Chairman Howard Schultz, was to close all company-owned stores in North America so that employees “could return home to be with family and friends,” according to a company statement. Headquarters conveyed this message by voice mail and e-mail to all the stores.
But with the exception of 15 or so stores at the southern end of Manhattan, the New York City branches reopened on September13. Several served food and coffee to rescue workers at Ground Zero, to people at blood donation centers, and to those at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, the command center for volunteer operations during the crisis.
Have a Plan in Place
While many companies have crisis contingency plans and disaster recovery plans in place, few had been tested as rigorously as they were on September 11. As Gregor Bailar, then chief information officer of Nasdaq, commented, “People will have to look very carefully at their backup strategies and see whether they can communicate with everybody easily, whether [critical data] are stored in that same building that could experience [a] disaster.”
Having contingency plans means, among other things, establishing contingency work sites. Soon after a truck bomb exploded in the garage of the World Trade Center in 1993, the New York Board of Trade began planning them. By 1995, it had built two sites in the borough of Queens. For six years, they sat empty, costing NYBOT $300,000 annually in rent and utilities. After September 11, 2001, however, these remote trading pits proved to be one of the best investments NYBOT had ever made.
Web-based communications require their own version of contingency planning. When the destruction of Oppenheimer’s Trade Center offices knocked out its intranet Web server, staff moved quickly to post crisis communications on a newly created employee section of the company’s Web site. Many other companies also took that approach so that employees who had Internet access at home could stay connected.
Although operations during a crisis should be decentralized, decision making should not be. Airlines have some of the better-developed crisis command centers. At American, the strategic command center is a vast room featuring a large, horseshoe-shaped table with fully equipped workstations and a conference call line that can accommodate as many as 200 outside callers. Large-screen televisions set up to receive satellite broadcasts allow command center employees to monitor all news coverage of the crisis.
Messages should also be sent from a centralized source. At Oppenheimer Funds, Bob Neihoff, then manager of contingency planning, called a designated number within moments of the attack, punched in some information, and activated the company’s crisis plan. Employees already knew to call into the Denver operation, which assumed control of the technology running the Web sites and voice mail systems. However, the substance of all communications came from Densen, the corporate affairs director, and CEO Murphy in New York City.
A widely circulated toll-free number can help ensure that employees obtain information from a single authorized source. Because Verizon had such a number, its 250,000 employees nationwide were able to access recorded messages containing the latest information about the crisis. Morgan Stanley’s toll-free number was televised as early as 11:00 am on September 11, making it, according to President and COO Bob Scott, “the first national emergency number of any organization, including the federal government.” By 1:30
pm that day, the firm’s crisis center had received more than 2,500 calls.
Finally, many executives I spoke with emphasized how important it was to have experienced communications professionals on board. These people were panic proof, executives said. “The advantage of communications veterans,” adds American Airline’s Tim Doke, “is that they have done everything, so in a crisis you can easily pull them out of one job and put them in another.”


5) Improvise, but from a Strong Foundation

“All of the planning that you do for a crisis helps you get through the basics,” says the New York Stock Exchange’s Robert Zito, its executive vice president for communications. Still, “people need to think on their feet and make quick decisions. Until the crisis comes, in whatever form, you don’t really understand how valuable all the preparation was.”
There is more to preparation than training. As important is instilling in employees the firm’s values. Although Starbucks ordered its 2,900 North American stores closed within a few hours of the attacks, the managers of several undamaged stores near the disaster site decided on their own initiative to stay open, a few all night, to provide coffee and pastries to hospital staffs and rescue workers. Others served as triage centers for the injured. People who had been wandering the streets of lower Manhattan in a daze were grabbed by Starbucks employees and pulled inside—and in some cases, lives were saved when nearby buildings collapsed.
One of the eight precepts recited in Starbucks’ mission statement is, “Contribute positively to our communities and our environment.” Many of Starbucks’ outlets are, even in Manhattan, neighborhood-gathering places, full of comfortable chairs in which customers may linger for hours. Essentially, they had helped bring together the community they served.
Goldman Sachs’s neighborhood is, in the abstract, the global marketplace, but its employees’ dedication to this community couldn’t have been fiercer. In one of his regular voice mails, Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson saw something of the typical bond trader’s agility and coolness under fire in his employees’ ability to cope with a disabled transportation system. “Getting to work remains very difficult,” he said. “Many routes are sealed off or closed. But that hasn’t stopped you… The police stepped in and stopped the buses [you chartered]. So one of you had the clever idea to secure ferryboats. What you couldn’t do by land you did by sea. Today, the idea of special buses with police escorts was a winner. And every colleague who needed to be in the office was here.”
That may have been due, in part, to other remarks Paulson had made. “Our assets will always be our people, capital, and reputation, with our people being the most important of the three… And the lesson here is that our principles will never fail us as long as we do not fail to live up to them.”
Goldman Sachs employees weren’t the only ones using nautical approaches to get to the office. At the New York Times, Russell Lewis told us that one reporter kayaked across the Hudson River to get to work.
Many of the executives we spoke with emphasized that a company cannot start communicating its mission and vision during a crisis. Employees will know what to do only if they have been absorbing the company’s guiding principles all along. Two of Oppenheimer’s shared values, according to an internal document, are “dedication to caring” and “team spirit.” Thinking back to 9/11, CEO John Murphy says, “If you have a strong culture, you have the ability to maintain focus. On 9/11, we had a structure, a belief system, and a hierarchy all in place. That helped us to get through the crisis, and we haven’t skipped a beat since.”
The company had one more advantage: a communications strategy, which succeeded in reminding its employees and the world of those assets. When the markets reopened, Oppenheimer, the only mutual fund manager in the towers, had one of the largest net inflows of any broker-sold fund family in the United States.
The most forward-thinking leaders realize that managing a crisis communications program requires the same dedication and resources they typically give to other dimensions of their business. They also realize that a strong internal communications function allows them not only to weather a crisis but to strengthen their organization internally.
Just as a death in the family often brings people closer together, so did the catastrophe on 9/11. Many of the executives I interviewed talked about how their companies sustained that sense of community long after 9/11 by keeping the lines of communication open. At the New York Times, the strength of these bonds was tested soon after the terrorist attacks when a reporter received an envelope containing a white powder suspected to be anthrax. Once again, Russell Lewis and other senior executives went on the public address system. “For that time period,” he recalls, “we were a family, and that doesn’t wear off, as long as you are consistent in your concern for coworkers.”

Before any other constructive action can take place—whether it’s serving customers or reassuring investors—the morale of employees must be rebuilt.
Operations during a crisis should be decentralized, but decision making should not be.

"Employees will know what to do in a crisis only if they have been absorbing the company’s guiding principles all along" said, Paul Argenti a Professor of Corporate Communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking on the post a comment box below.

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.

He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.

Result Oriented Communication,
Effective Crisis Communication,
Effectual Political Communication,
Reputation and Image management,
And Impactful Presentation Coaching.
He can be reached on
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter @ishopr and via
Email: impactfulcommunications@gmail.com