Anticipation is Critical to Your Preparation

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

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.

The Internet and the Rules for Handling a Crisis

The Internet presents businesses and organizations in crisis with many new challenges and lessons. Chief among them is that you cannot afford to be an absentee participant when it comes to crisis communications.

That lesson comes through loud and clear in the TVA’s pre-Christmas coal sludge spill in eastern Tennessee. The extent of the flood of gook and the issues and concerns that remain unresolved demand a continued presence by a representative of senior management, on or near the scene and providing regular updates. Yet, TVA CEO Tom Kilgore apparently has managed only two appearances thus far, at a briefing shortly after the containment pool was breached, and then a community meeting a couple of days after Christmas (1st video below). Otherwise, the few bit parts TVA played in media reports were handled by spokespersons and management from the Kingston Power Plant, source of the sludge. Title and media access at a fixed location would’ve afforded a senior manager more of a role in news stories.

In the interim, real and self-appointed environmentalists and some agents of fear were allowed to dominate either through mainstream media or online. On youtube.com, for example, you can find a number of videos. Some are actual news stories from “mainstream” media. But the “library” of videos also includes amateur “reports” that can leave very damaging impressions.

For instance, the nine minute video (2nd video below), apparently of two men in a car confronting a sheriff’s deputy at a road block. They say they want to go through in order to deliver printed warnings and advisories to residents along the river about the potential dangers to their drinking water. They talk about people who have become ill from the water. But, they offer no facts, only rumors and conjecture. In fact, they are not even from the area. They claim they’re from Indiana. We don’t even see them until one makes an on-camera appearance late in the video. (His image is reminiscent of a character from the movie Deliverance, and I’m not referring to Burt Reynolds and friends in the rafting party. On looks, alone, this guy is not someone you would immediately rely on for help or information.)

Cyberspace represents a playing field without boundaries or ground rules. And, while legitimate journalists and others who are guided by a sense of ethics and balance participate, so, too, do many, many others who can “report” without being edited or controlled in any way. Indeed, even the bonafide media give access to anyone with a camera. For instance, CNN’s iReport.com includes this disclaimer: “iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post. Only stories marked ‘On CNN’ have been vetted for use in CNN news coverage.”

It appears TVA treated this as a local story that, unlike the pool of sludge, could be contained. But nothing is local any longer. The Internet has guaranteed that. Plus, this spill led a number of national newscasts shortly after it happened.

You need to take ownership of the crisis in representing your organization. The news media always will chase third party and eye witness comments. Those elements can leave lasting, damaging and incorrect impressions. There’s no question that this sludge spill is a major story and the long-term effects remain to be seen. But TVA’s low level participation has allowed the prominence of many damaging impressions, real or perceived, that may never be fully erased by an industry that can ill afford them.