Kung Fools

The part of Glasgow I grew up in – Cardonald – isn’t particularly gangland-rough but did have its share of no-go zones for a teenager in the late 70’s. Violence and fighting was never far from my mind at that age, even if I wasn’t really that good at either. I had my illusions and did hang out with someone who was very good, much more practiced and tasty. He (we will call him Charlie*, not his real name) and I joined up together for martial arts classes at one stage. He lasted a good year or two before being thrown out for being too aggressive (too aggressive, for martial arts in Glasgow ??) but I had quit after a mere few weeks, the sessions playing havoc with my hairstyle (see previous posts). We also both had a bit of an issue with having to sit through the remember, we are all just the eyelash of a butterfly Zen philosophy lesson you had endure at the start of each class before they taught you how to banjo someone trying to crown you with a beer bottle.

Charlie was a bit different from the rest of us. He was a mixed race, adopted child with much older foster parents. I don’t think he knew his biological family or provenance, we never asked. That’s not to say he wasn’t surrounded by some version of love, but he stood out, and his mere presence could draw attention and comment in a way that the rest of us, or his adoptive parents, couldn’t relate to. All of which he would take to a point, or his tipping point, to be precise.

An example; we were about 18 and invited to a friend of a friend’s party. A drunken host let us in and we explained our friend Charlie would join in a few moments with some supplies of alcohol. We enter the lounge and eye up the action unaware that Charlie has arrived and is ringing the bell. Hi, says the host, they didn’t tell me to expect cannibals! At which point Charlie didn’t exchange further banter, preferring instead to take one step back and introduce his foot to the host’s face via a well-executed reverse karate kick. The first we knew of this was when the host re-entered his lounge, with bloody nose and minus two teeth, and asked us all to leave before the police arrived. A pity. I was already on a promise. Another time there’s a group of us in a cavernous 80’s city centre disco (Videoteque, anyone?) and my very pretty girlfriend is getting serious and unwanted attention from some seriously heavy dudes. She tells them to get lost and there’s a mounting and horrible edge to the dry-ice atmosphere. I’m busy telling anyone/everyone to calm down, that violence is not the answer. To my surprise, Charlie is in agreement. We’re here for a good time. Then one of the dudes questions Charlie’s origins/heritage/right to be a Glasgow on a Saturday night. At which point Charlie floors him. He pressed the wrong button and, bang! just like that. Remarkably, we are not thrown out. I spend the rest of the soiree continuing the theme of pacifism being the only true course even if no one can hear me over the thunderous Chic and Spandau bloody Ballet but I notice my girlfriend does not leave Charlie’s side. Nor, for that matter, do I.

Long term, of course, the ready recourse to chop-socky didn’t serve Charlie well. He was refused entry to the Army because of a lengthy list of cautions, he struggled sometimes for anything other than menial work similarly. All because of his one response when anyone, however inadvertently, strayed an inch into the wrong territory. He was like a pinball machine with a very sensitive ‘tilt’ mechanism, and once those lights came up, there was one sure outcome. Which is great if you want to live your life as one long Tarantino movie, more problematic if you want to make regular mortgage payments.

I have been thinking about these tilt moments. They exist in the Business world too. When you ask the wrong question and touch inadvertently on something way too personal, raw and with a caravan-trail of baggage you were not aware of. Logic goes out the window, and in comes the knee-jerk karate chop. Sorry, obviously I seem to have offended you, but I don’t know how. Yet if it’s a major fault-line buried deep in the corporate psyche, the people you have offended might not know why either.

Imagine – and this is a scenario approved by my lawyers who asked me to be explicitly clear that what I am about to describe never happened - there is an energy utility that had some catastrophically bad press when an undercover reporter caught a subsidiary training its staff how to miss-sell and circumvent regulatory rules. And that is the worst coverage they have had since the last time they were caught in much the same way. Screaming Headlines, angry politicians, regulator tearing hair out etc. Continue with this far-fetched fantasy and picture that you yourself humbly consider that you might have some experience with this landscape – crisis media management, placating stakeholders, the miss-alignment of corporate brand and values to the skull-duggery in the competitive jungle, and the need to have a plan to have a plan for a long term fix to avoid the recurring mess that threatens your licence to operate. You might even dream that you are reasonably good at this and that you have something to offer that would be of use to those in the eye of the storm because in that moment they will be hurt, angry, confused and just too damned close to it all to operate effectively. So in this entirely dreamt-up scenario you reach out to a senior contact there. What response do you draw then; is it:

A)   Thanks, we need all the help we can get, Can’t promise you anything but would love your take, can you swing by for a coffee or something stronger? 

B)   Yup, we know we have a problem and there’s a whole team in lock-down charged with coming up with a range of options pronto. I’ll let them know you are available but they are inundated with suggestions and demands so they might not even get back to you. That’s how it is just now. Maybe catch up in slower time. 

C)   Actually we just had a Board session on this and agreed how unreasonable the whole press and social media thing is and how the last thing we need is any sudden change or movement away from the good stuff we are doing that never gets reported. We’ve got a great strategy and we’ve just got to keep on keeping on. In fact, the comms part is going really well, apart from this unfair coverage everywhere and the good stuff being ignored. Our stakeholders will have to realise this too. In fact, we are all agreed that the last thing we need to do is re-think anything. The problem is the society we live in. We blame the schools. And the parents. And the government and media. Anyway, there is no intention to go over this with you or anyone else. Nothing personal. Please pass this on.

Let me reiterate that none of this ever happened.

Especially C.

Tilt.

Is there a perceived hint of ambulance chasing in the approach that deserves the C  treatment? Maybe the time to reach out is when things are going well.  My logic was that if they weren’t going to realise that maybe their approach was in need of review when they were knee-deep in calamity, when would they? And it wasn’t as if I’m making racist remarks on a doorstep or threatening misogynist ones in a dance-hall, and deserve everything I get.  But logic isn’t part of it. No matter how positive my attempted sell - ‘this could be better’, what was received was - ‘let me tell you where you are going wrong’. And they weren’t in the market for being reminded it was going horribly wrong. There is a learning for me in here too I guess.

My contention is that everything in this area – Comms, bringing your brand to life through the values themselves that you bring to life and make meaningful for your customers, stakeholder engagement – are things that the corporate ego cannot tolerate any notion of being less than perfect. It is, corporately speaking, too raw and personal to contemplate anything else. Which can mean you defend to the end your self-image of perfection, and everything else bends its reality to fit this.

I have friends who are accountants, who can call up contacts and offer some new thinking on VAT calculations or whatever and be ushered straight in to the Finance Director’s team meeting. Best practice? We need to know. I envy my IT friends who shake hands on a deal before you can say Cloud-Based Solution. They don’t have to hope they won’t be slapped just for asking about their line of business. Nobody seems to get irreversibly entrenched about VAT or accounting practices, about best use of IT in the way they do about brand, comms and engagement.

However, I have to admit, I have my share of trigger words too. Ten years of charming, cajoling and seducing correspondents on behalf of Scottish Water and I’d still go homicidal when they wrote us up as a ‘Quango’ in their headlines. Even ‘Successful Quango’ would have me in a blinds-drawn silent rage. Why? Because it cut right across the narrative I hoped to cement for us. I received it as snide and cynical, a code word for inept/cushy number/ unaccountable, and coming from people in whom I’d invested time and hope. Did they mean it that way? On reflection, possibly not. Which can only mean it’s my reaction that’s worthy of inspection here, and the question is could I have taken the energy of my reaction to a more positive place.

Which brings me to the final point/conundrum/whatever, and it is a personal theory, gained from working as above, so my lawyer is happy for me to share it, my contention, the ‘C’ Theory:

..the more entrenched and defensive about an issue or aspect of performance you are, the more there is waiting for you to gain, if you can bring yourself to lift the bonnet and take a look at what’s underneath. You can do this with your team in private, or even facilitated by someone external, capable of bringing a fresh perspective, but make sure he gets that in the scheme of things he’s just the eyelash of a butterfly.

 If your corporate attitude is consistently and aggressively defensive the chances are the reasons for this won’t be good.  Address them and the gains can be huge.

What are your trigger words, personal, professional? What do they tell you about where you are at and where do you need to go with them? Go on, draw the blinds and have a conversation with yourself.

*Charlie, as stated, is not his real name. Actually, his real name is Calum. He worked dangerous shifts on the North Sea rigs and is now a Site Safety inspector for a London Engineering Contractor. He raises his kids to do the right thing. Much love to you and yours Calum, we are all proud of you.

We’d all better hope those sites pass inspection.