Savvy CEO’s go into news interviews with the mindset of “what’s in it for me?” Nothing wrong with that! The media usually aren’t asking you for an interview just to do you a favor. They need you to help them, so, there’s every reason for you to think about what you can get out of it, too.
That means having a clear vision of the medium you’re talking with, who are their readers/viewers/listeners, and who in that large pool of audiences you need to reach with a premeditated agenda.
Tupperware CEO Rick Goings made the most of his interview with CNBC’s Rebecca Jarvis at the Yale CEO Summit earlier this month. He sent a clear message to investors, CEOs and especially boards of directors. “Growth and perpetuation of the enterprise” is job one of a board, according to Goings.
He added that “weak strategies with weak CEOs has been allowed to exist because of weak boards.” (Click on the video below for the essence of Goings’ remarks.)
Goings obviously isn’t excited by all the government involvement today in the U.S. free enterprise sector. GM should’ve been allowed to fail, he said. And he blames the GM board for not acting years ago in changing leadership and getting a new business model that could’ve prevented the automaker’s historic decline into bankruptcy.
While Goings took advantage of the CNBC interview, the business network probably—and happily—received more than it had hoped thanks to the Tupperware executive’s strong comments.
(From the editor: Any bona fide journalists reading this should not take offense. I used to be one of you, and I’m proud of it. Those who deal wisely with the news media know how to do it without getting into the slop.)
Certainly you’ve heard the old refrain that when you wrestle with a pig in mud, only the pig enjoys it. That highly graphic image often has been applied to dealing with the news media. Of course, news most often is negative, with the exception of so-called positive stories that break through because they’re unusual.
Let your emotions get out of control and people watching might condemn the pig for being rude to you, but you’re still not above the fray. You’ve been dragged into the mud. And, your mission—to get messages to important audiences—most likely will fail.
And that’s what happened to BusinessWeek’s online “Ethics Guy” Dr. Bruce Weinstein (a Ph.D.) in a recent interview about whether healthcare is a right. His interviewer on the Fox Business Network was Stuart Varney. Weinstein believes the government has a moral responsibility to provide healthcare to all. Varney is a Brit by birth and is someone who has experience with socialized healthcare.
It was that word—socialism—suggested by Varney that set off Weinstein. Weinstein pounded the desk and raised his voice. His rising anger was palpable. He even attacked Fox’s two cable networks. Varney was doing his job and even smiled at one point during Weinstein’s meltdown. (Click on video below to see for yourself.)
Who won? I'm not sure that question is even relevant. My evaluation is Weinstein allowed himself to be sucked in and derailed from his overall message because he failed to control his feelings.
There are tried and true steps you need to take before every interview to prepare you to answer questions responsively, yet on your terms.
1. First, identify your priority audiences based on the medium you are talking to. Audiences are individuals and/or groups that can help you reach your business goals. They must be persuadable! 2. Next, consider all the positive points you’d like to make based on the focus of the interview. 3. Now, flip the coin; what questions can you anticipate? Consider both positive and negative questions, and make sure you include the obvious ones that could come up. Develop positive responses, especially to those negative questions. Being positive keeps you in a more persuasive posture. 4. Rehearse; practice helps you learn to pause and prevent you from answering those negative questions in a defensive or argumentative posture.
Much too often I see executives getting snagged on questions they should’ve anticipated and prepared for, sabotaging their overall message goals and credibility.
In a 60 Minutes segment earlier this spring with CBS correspondent Scott Pelley, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers made a rational case for the continued use of coal as utilities move toward reducing their carbon emissions. "We can't abandon coal. We have to find a way to keep it and use it in the future. And that means the ability to clean it up," he told Pelley.
Rogers and his allies believe there’s a future for continued use of coal through capture and sequestration, which simply means containing the carbon dioxide from escaping into the air and storing it, most likely deep in the earth.
You’ve probably seen the coal industry’s advertising on behalf of clean coal. In part, it says, "And we have to advance new clean coal technologies. If we don't, we may have to say goodbye to the American way of life that we all know and love."
Rogers agrees: "We can't abandon coal. We have to find a way to keep it and use it in the future. And that means the ability to clean it up."
So, correspondent Pelley asked the obvious question: how much has Duke Energy invested in carbon sequestration technology? Rogers: "We have not invested any dollars in the technology, per say. We have spent a lot of time and money reviewing and analyzing the various technologies…we're going to co-invest with the government when this technology evolves." (Click on video below to see this segment.)
Everything Rogers said about cleaning up coal before this one question and answer was compromised. If he and his communicators failed to anticipate the question, shame on them. But, if they did see it coming, there were stronger alternative responses. For instance: “As various technologies are being developed, we are spending time and money analyzing them so that as good stewards of our customers’ and investors’ money we're in a position to invest in the most promising process that’s developed.” This is a message for target audiences like his customers, investors, industry analysts and, most importantly, fence-sitters.
To make this even easier, all Rogers needed to do was drop the very first sentence to his response. That’s the one that did all the damage. It’s a negative answer that weakens his position and negated all his previous statements.
This is not rocket science, as they say, but getting in front of the media, whether it’s 60 Minutes or your local newspaper, requires anticipation and preparation.
Do you really mean it when you say “I think”? Ever kept track of all the times you say it? How many times you begin a sentence with it? Even inject that little phrase in the middle of statements?
I know I do it a lot. We seem socialized to do it. It’s a verbal pause, just a split second of time to—well—think as you either answer a question or continue a statement. Just like someone who keeps repeating “you know” during the course of conversation. It rarely means anything. It’s just filler.
Even in our writing, we use those two words as an unnecessary qualifier. We say it so often, it probably goes almost unnoticed. Almost. But, the more I hear it, the more I believe those two words often weaken what you’re saying. When you know, or believe, something, why say “I think”?
Listen to people more closely. Listen to how they respond. Listen to interviews. That’s one communication situation where you’ll hear “I think” ad nauseam. Even reading print stories, quotes often include those two little words that little by little chip away at your expertise and self-assuredness.
CEOs are just as prone to it as the worker bees in cubicles or on a plant floor. I watch, listen to and read lots of interviews. I wish I had a dollar for all the “I thinks” I hear each time. There are exceptions, though, and when I encounter someone who does not lean on this verbal crutch often, if at all, it becomes even more obvious just how much more your statements are strengthened.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, is a case in point. I really enjoy hearing him being interviewed, and only partially because of his first name. Schmidt is quite glib (and I mean this in a very positive sense). I don’t remember hearing him say “I think” much, if at all. Recently, he was on Meet the Press and I listened closely to his answers. There’s an example below for you click on. Let me know what you think. For me, his answers relay an image of confidence and expertise, a guy very much in charge, well informed and quite believable. Someone who knows what he believes and doesn't have to qualify that fact in any way.
Like I said, I’m just as “guilty” as the next person for falling into the habit in what I say or write with “I think” either leading a sentence or padding one. And I’m working hard to monitor myself so I can edit that phrase out of my vocabulary when it so often has no benefit to what I’m communicating. I’m getting a little better at it.
“The prescription for remedying any disaster is to demonstrate empathy and to communicate those concerns from those at the top of the organization.”
Bull’s-eye! The above quote comes from the June 3, 2009 blog posting (“Thinking the Unthinkable”) by Ken Silverstein, editor-in-chief of EnergyBiz Insider. It’s an excellent piece on preparing for a crisis before one hits.
Silverstein focuses on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s huge spill of 5 million cubic yards of coal ash shortly before Christmas. A crisis that continues resonating.
Late last year, after observing the first hours and days of that unimaginable catastrophe, Executive Rewindevaluated TVA’s initial crisis response. It was our contention that management was virtually invisible and seemingly inaccessible during the Christmas weekend while residents who either lost their homes, or were surrounded and trapped by the oozing mass, or frightened that the spill was heavily tainted with toxins, were left during that weekend to pretty much fend for themselves. There were no deaths, fortunately, but fears were confirmed when water tests indicated elevated levels of deadly pollutants that killed hundreds of fish.
Also, we made the point that this spill and its handling could not have come at a worse time for the utility industry. The new Obama Administration was less than a month away from taking power along with a heavily Democratic Congress, both with a very sensitive ear honed in on the anti-coal forces in Washington. (Silverstein alluded to these facts, as well, in a May 11, 2009 post entitled “Pouring on Coal Waste.”)
I second the advice Ken Silverstein offers in his blog. And, while his area of expertise is in the energy and utility industries, the wisdom of what he says is applicable to any organization/business, whether large or small. Your good name and continued prosperity might just depend on it.
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