Canada’s best and worst communicators

 

 

Lindsey Coulter

Ketchum Public Relations

416-355-7430

 

Trevor Boudreau

Ketchum Public Relations

416-355-7425

 

 

Toronto, December 3, 2007 - Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel were honored with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” on this year’s list of Canada’s best and worst communicators – the fourth annual ranking by Ketchum Public Relations Canada that recognizes skillful, colorful and effective communication as well as the verbose, crassly manipulative and downright stupid.

 

Joining the high-profile couple on this year’s list were a minister, a labor leader, politicians, sports figures and civil servants. Every year, Ketchum professionals track hundreds of spokespeople as they deal with potentially damaging issues in the fields of business, government, spot news, sports, and the arts. The results are used to highlight valuable communication lessons.

 

“The best communicators help themselves by being credible and compelling,” said Ketchum Canada Managing Director Geoffrey Rowan. “The worst are unbelievable, in every sense of that word. If you can understand them at all, they sound vague, defensive, evasive, or downright dishonest, dismantling their own reputations in the process.”

 

Here are 10 lessons we learned from Canada’s best and worst communicators in 2007.

 

 

Lord and Lady Black possess an extraordinary command of the English language – verbal and nonverbal – and a mystifying tendency to offer themselves up for public ridicule. The problem seems to be that they don’t really care whether the unwashed masses (anyone with a net worth below $100 million) understands them or sympathizes with them. After all, how likely is it that ordinary people would ever be able to sit in judgment of them in any meaningful way?

 

The Blacks teach us that pomposity rarely results in effective communication, unless the intention is to create distance between you and your audience, or to make your audience laugh at you. Likewise, obscene gestures and name-calling rarely evoke kindness or sympathy, unless you have been diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome.

 

This year, when Ms. Amiel reportedly aimed her considerable intellect at a CBC producer and said, “You slut . . . You're all vermin. I'm sick of it," she only reinforced a perception that she feels she is above it all. Unfortunately for her, it’s the “vermin” and “sluts” who get the last word.

 

Likewise, Mr. Black again demonstrated his contempt for media with an obscene finger gesture as he entered a Chicago courthouse to await a jury ruling in the case against him. Not quite as wordy as he is usually, but we get the point.

 

There have been too many colorful quotes from the Blacks over the years to catalog them here. As media hounds, we appreciate the entertaining stories the Blacks’ generate, but as business communicators we can’t ignore the fact that their pronouncements usually backfire. Hence the lifetime achievement award for a body of work that is unparalleled in creating animosity, ridicule and recriminations. (We grandfathered him in even though he renounced his Canadian citizenship to accept a relatively meaningless peerage, so he’d no longer be a commoner and so he could poke a finger in former Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s eye. That’s another poorly thought out communication that Mr. Black likely regrets now that he faces sentencing in the U.S.)

 

Was it smart business to call reporters, many of whom he employed, a "swarming, grunting masses of jackals?” Did he influence them effectively when he called them “ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest and inadequately supervised?''

For her part, Ms. Amiel’s most infamous line, beyond the “slut” salutation, entrenched her reputation as an unsympathetic character. "I have an extravagance that knows no bounds."

 

Assuming it’s true, on what planet would that ever be considered an admirable characteristic? The planet Nouveau Riche?

 

 

In an era where so many people are focused on the measurements of success (see above – ”extravagance that knows no bounds”) it can be easy to lose sight of the real goal. The Rev. David Giuliano, head of the United Church of Canada, clearly understands the importance of focusing on what you do and how you do it.

 

At a time when the United Church, like most churches, is losing members, he admonished congregations across the country to stop worrying so much about "buildings and budgets" and worry more about "the suffering of the world around us."

 

“Our hope is not for our survival or even growth,” said Rev. Giuliano. “I am praying that our preoccupation with getting people into church is transformed by a passion for getting the church out into the world. I am praying that we welcome strangers with a radical hospitality that sees in them the face of Christ — not an ‘identifiable giver’ or a ‘potential committee member.’”

 

The lesson then is that good communication makes an emotional connection. The Rev. Giuliano did a wonderful job of reminding his flock about their real emotional connection to their church.

 

 

The collapse of John Tory’s campaign to become premier of Ontario was spectacular, in large part because the Ontario Conservative leader was seen as such a genuine and authentic leader before the campaign – a nonpolitician’s politician. The former businessman built a solid base of support because many voters liked his pragmatic, business-like approach, which included a promise not to engage in the standard politics of negativity.

 

Ironically, given the charges of broken promises faced by the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty, Mr. Tory was undone by saying one thing and doing another. From the opening salvo of the campaign through the post-election commentary, Mr. Tory abandoned his business background and sounded like every other politician, running an almost entirely negative campaign. The more his support dropped the more negative he became.

 

History records that he lost because of his promise to fund faith-based schools and his subsequent flip-flop on that.

 

"I have always believed that listening to the people is at the very core of leadership," he said, admitting the policy had "become too much a source of division."

 

"MPPs will be allowed a free vote, so they are at liberty to vote their conscience and represent the wishes of their constituent," he said. "In this significant way, the public can be more involved in the decision making. They have expressed strong concerns and I have heard them."

 

We think he lost when he stopped sounding like the John Tory that his supporters thought they were going to get.

 

 

Herouxville, Quebec, is at the centre of the province's controversial ''reasonable accommodation'' debate over what are reasonable actions to accommodate cultural and ethnic differences. In some cases, public hearings have deteriorated into inflammatory rhetoric and offensive stereotyping, but some have shown an admiral ability to refrain from being goaded into vitriol.

 

We were especially impressed by the artful communication of a group of nine Muslim women from Montreal, who came bearing gifts and a simple but powerful message.

 

''Let's stop the prejudices,'' said the group's leader, Najat Boughaba. ''Let's be reasonable. Let's accommodate each other – that's our message.''

 

But at least one man in the audience was not willing to accept the olive branch. ''I want to know,'' he asked the Muslims angrily, ''how do you have the audacity to come here with your veils on?''

 

Ms. Boughaba defused the anger with grace and good humor, answering: ''It's not audacity. It's a piece of clothing.''

 

 

Just about everyone thinks communication is dead easy and they’re great at it. Not so much. If you don’t give it your full attention you will screw up.

 

Job applicant Evon Reid was stunned when he opened an e-mail from the Ontario government's cabinet office where he'd applied for a position.

 

"This is the ghetto dude that I spoke to before," said the e-mail to the University of Toronto honors student from Aileen Siu, the very person handling his job application. Confronted with her offense, Ms. Siu just made matters worse.

 

"It wasn't directed at Evon at all. That was internal . . . It didn't have anything to do with any of the applicants," she said, suggesting that it’s acceptable to refer to job applicants inside the government with derogatory, racially loaded terms.

 

 

Few things in Canada generate more ink and more emotion than hockey. That’s why we liked the communication style demonstrated by Paul Kelly, the new executive director of the NHL Players' Association.

 

Labor negotiations are almost always contentious, and the NHLPA has dealt with more than its share of hot issues in recent years. But Mr. Kelly knows you don’t drop the gloves as soon as you step on the ice. If anything is going to help the game, it will be a new era of collegial relationship between players and owners that keeps the attention on the puck.

 

"What I'd like to do is sit down with Gary (NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman) and just talk for awhile," Mr. Kelly said. "We need to get to know each other . . . I understand there's a line there, that we represent our sides. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have respect for one another."

 

 

We’re as worried as the next guy about global warming, but Green Party Leader Elizabeth May gave herself a hot foot when she said Stephen Harper’s stand on climate change "represents a grievance worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis."

 

For the record, the direct and immediate result of the West's initial policy of appeasement was perhaps the worst genocide history has ever seen. Equating climate change, over which reasonable people might disagree, with unimaginable mass murder and a world war that killed millions and displaced a significant portion of the planet’s population might be just a little bit over the top.

 

Never mind that Prime Minister Harper is not in the same position to influence global action on the issue as was Prime Minster Chamberlain, the comparison was offensive and ridiculous at a time when the Greens were starting to make some gains in credibility.

 

Compounding her gaffe, Ms. May went on to say that everyone does it, so it’s OK: "Obviously the idea is out there everywhere. I won't retract what I didn't say."

 

 

We can never know the anguish that Steven Truscott has experienced during a 48-year battle to clear his name in the murder of classmate Lynne Harper, but if ever there was anyone entitled to rage against the system, Mr. Truscott is that person.

 

Instead, he was composed and quietly charming when told he had been cleared.

 

"Oh, that's fantastic," Mr. Truscott said quietly when told of the news. “Fantastic. They finally got it right after all these years. I'm so used to fighting. Now we don't have to fight anymore. I'm going to have to rethink what to say. . . . The whole day was unbelievable. This is the first time in 48 years that something positive has come out."

 

 

The organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving had a rough year, learning the hard way that wishful thinking won’t make public problems go away.

 

MADD thought it had quietly removed founder John Bates from two of the charity’s committees that monitor the organization’s spending after he spoke out against their spending practices. It appears the organization thought it could sweep its PR problem under the rug.

 

"I feel betrayed," said the 79-year-old, whose 25-year battle against drinking and driving earned him the Order of Canada. "This seems to be in response to asking too many questions. But I don't believe in spending donor money the way MADD head office does and I feel I had a responsibility to speak out."

 

A Toronto Star investigation found that most of the millions MADD fundraises stays with the paid telemarketers, door knockers and direct- mail companies hired by the charity to raise cash. MADD vice-chairman Al Newton said Mr. Bates was removed because he is a nonvoting member of the board and the board had decided that only voting members should be on committees.

 

Another communication lesson MADD might take from this is that sometimes actions speak louder than words.

 

 

Did we mention that Canadians care about hockey? So it was front-page news when some politicians attacked the selection of Shane Doan as Team Canada’s captain because of an alleged incident during a NHL game in December 2005 between Doan's Phoenix Coyotes and the hometown Montreal Canadiens.

 

Wearing his emotions on his sleeve, Mr. Doan stuck up for himself with a genuine message that struck a chord with Canadians and left some members of the House of Commons wishing they’d picked on someone else.

 

"As a player, as a citizen of Canada, it hurts,” he said.

 

"I've made it a personal goal in my life. My dad has established it, my grandfather established it. Our family has established the fact that [we're] character, quality people. For someone to question that and call that out and say that I'm a bad role model, I'd rather you call me the worst hockey player in the world and that I don't deserve to be on the team. Anything like that, that's fine. You can say whatever you want. But don't question my character. Don't question the basis of what I am."

 

 

The Best and Worst of 2008

If you would like to get in on the fun for Canada’s Best and Worst Communicators of 2008, send nominations to geoffrey.rowan@ketchum.com. Each nomination must contain the quote, its speaker, the date it was spoken and a verifiable reference to the media outlet where it was reported.

 

 

A communications innovator, Ketchum ranks among the largest global public relations agencies, operating in more than 50 countries. With five global practices – Brand Marketing, Corporate, Healthcare, Food and Nutrition, and Technology – and specialty areas that include Concentric Communications (experiential marketing, events and meetings), Ketchum Entertainment Marketing, Ketchum Global Research, Ketchum Sports Network, Stromberg Consulting (change management and workplace communications) and The Washington Group (lobbying and government relations), Ketchum leverages its marketing and corporate communications expertise to build brands and reputations for clients. For more information on Ketchum, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC), visit www.ketchum.com.