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Communications Challenges Can Turn to Opportunities
by Lindsay Strand
 The following is a preview of one of the topics to be covered during
the Leadership Training Institute seminars at NLC's Congress of Cities and Exposition in Orlando, Fla., November 11-15.
Picture this: Your city worked hard and was fortunate enough to land a major special event, and the event went beautifully, building goodwill and setting the stage for future business.
But suddenly, the city assessor has discovered that sales tax was not collected on admission to the event, creating a huge cost the city must now pay through general fund revenues. An apology to the public is clearly in order. What do you do?
Choices abound. You can leave the mistake for staff to announce. You can bury it in some minutes of a public meeting. You can ignore the issue until the council needs to vote on an alternative method of raising the funds. You can leak it to the newspaper. You can announce the bad news with a big dose of blame — elsewhere.
Before making a decision, define your goal and your audience.
Define Success
Before the situation spins out of control, stop and think about what you want. What will define success in this situation? Whose credibility is at stake?
Then decide who you most need to communicate with. What do you need to say to national leaders in the hospitality industry? Will they be concerned that you could make a mistake of this magnitude during a future event? What do you need to tell taxpayers? Do you have an election opponent who will be watching your every move? How will you work out with staff exactly who is held responsible for the error? Who is to blame, if anyone?
As you move through these questions, prioritize the most important audiences and who you need to reach first. Think of the process as building a pyramid and place the most crucial audience at the top of the pyramid to be communicated with first.
If you lack clarity on these questions, you may fail with each and every audience by delivering a poorly constructed, muddled message that lacks credibility.
Choose the Messenger
Whether it's bad news or good news, in today’s business world, CEO’s are usually held in reserve and comment sparingly. But in elected office, citizens expect their leaders to “come clean” and accept full responsibility for any problem.
If you dispatch staff or others to deliver the announcement in advance of your own remarks, recognize it will not carry the same weight. And if others do go out ahead of you, make sure that you are at least willing to take as much responsibility as they have previously indicated you would. Ideally, be willing to go further.
For example, if staff says a large cost overrun has been discovered and there is no sound explanation for it, don’t try to “put the issue back in a box” by stating only that it will be properly reviewed. If an apology is in order, make it. Remember that apologies that come too late are seen as insincere.
Note Audience's Viewpoint
Think about what you will say in your announcement. Will you use “sanitized words” or accounting jargon, or speak as you would if you were explaining this to a neighbor? Start by stating your goals out loud and then think how you want to state them differently to maximize impact with the audience. Anticipate their questions.
Say it once from your own perspective and then again from the perspective of your most important audience.
There are four lessons to be learned by any leader facing communications challenges. First, after identifying your audience and prioritizing them, think not about the message you seek to convey, but what you convey in your message that will best persuade your audience. Second, when an issue truly threatens your credibility, don’t leave the hard work, such as an apology, to lower level staff. Third, when a top official speaks, the message must be consistent with what others have already said. Fourth, speak from the audience’s viewpoint, not your own.
With these tips in mind, you will be ready to weather the bad news and take steps toward building a stronger relationship with your constituents.
Details: Strand will be leading Leadership Training Institute seminar L22, entitled “Speak So They Will Listen,”
on Wednesday, November 12 from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. For more information
or to register for Leadership Training Institute seminars, visit www.nlc.org.
Lindsay Strand is president of Lindsay Strand Associates Inc., a communications consulting and executive media training and speech coaching firm, based in Minnetonka, Minn. She is a former television political reporter.
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