Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Anyone Remember Letterman?




By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®


The political cartoonists keep feasting on the carcass of Tiger Woods, adulterer. Just further evidence of not only his poor choices, but also disastrous decisions, presumably aided with equally bad advice, to try to let the story fade away.

New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas has been making a career recently at Tiger’s expense. Of course, there’s little chance Woods would not have served as a human piƱata for late night talkers, cartoonists and others, but it didn’t have to go on this long.

Silence can elicit a deafening response, especially in today's wild west of free-wheeling media, when anyone can megaphone commentary globally on the Internet. And the beat goes on.

Hey, didn’t David Letterman have a child out of wedlock? With a woman he’d been living with for years? And didn’t he eventually marry his son’s mother, only to admit that since his relatively recent nuptials, he’d been bedding down some of the women who work on his show? David Letterman is in our dens, living rooms and/or bedrooms nightly. Yet, his dalliances pretty much have been forgotten, if not forgiven. The aftermath died down rather quickly.

While it may have been difficult, Letterman decided he would break the news on his own show. The predictable high tide of reaction, derision and humor followed, and then ebbed away, fairly fast.
Because of the choices Tiger and his handlers have made, the tsunami of ridicule and fallout continues, with no immediate end in sight.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

You’re Fired!


GM Chairman and acting CEO, Ed Whitacre









Outsted CEO Fritz Henderson


It’s bad enough having your firing announced live on national television. But how would you feel if the executive making that announcement treated it cavalierly, as if he was making a new product presentation?

That’s how General Motors chairman Ed Whitacre handled the dismissal of Fritz Henderson. Walking back and forth on a stage, reading from a script. Monitors in the background displaying large pictures of shiny new cars. This could’ve been an introduction of a new addition to GM’s automobile portfolio.

Check out the video below. Body language speaks volumes and here was Whitacre casually telling reporters in a hastily called news conference that Henderson was done. Thanks for your decades of service, Fritz! He even read the words; clearly heart-felt.

video

Had it not been live TV, it could just as well been a video of a rehearsal in Whitacre’s office. If the audio had been muted, you’d think he was conducting a lunch and learn.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Tiger Woods


By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

John Edwards, David Letterman, Tiger Woods. Which one doesn’t belong? Yes, they all had extramarital affairs. But only Letterman broke the news himself and thereby took some control over the story.

Edwards tried to play hide-and-seek so long, in the end he looked incredibly foolish. Somehow he thought he could dodge the bullet.

In Woods’ case, he had both those incidents from which to learn and decided on the wrong lesson. He could’ve gotten ahead of this story on his terms, instead of being forced to respond on someone else’s.

A post-midnight one car crash into a tree and fire hydrant, inside an exclusive Florida gated community. The driver: Tiger Woods. Considering the late hour of the “accident” just outside his home, somehow, in your gut, you knew it was much more than it appeared.

And so it was. It took 6 days of intrigue, with the world watching and wondering, receiving at one point an ambiguous online statement.

Inevitably an information vacuum quickly developed, only to be filled by the physics of gossip, rumor, speculation and innuendo.

Finally, on the 6th day, after rumors of one affair with a New York woman, Us Magazine broke the news of a nearly three year affair with an L.A. cocktail waitress. Then, Tiger had no choice. He released a statement on his web site that was reported worldwide within minutes via media like ESPN’s all news channel (click on video).
video
He had been warned. Two days into the story, NBCSports.com blogger Michael Ventre encouraged Woods to speak up.

Communication professionals could see clearly what was at stake by remaining silent. One in particular,
edit30, Insight for Business Communicators, recognized Woods for what he’s become, a brand. And brands live, or die, on perceptions. Communicators understand how news and information are spread today, both in terms of speed and validity. And they learn from the mistakes of others’ past experiences. Unfortunately, their advice is too often ignored, if even solicited.
Known for his uncanny ability to focus and concentrate, just how might this story and the way it was allowed to unravel become an ongoing distraction for Tiger Woods? Or, have we been following this amazing athlete unaware of his superior ability to compartmentalize?