by Jim Sweeney | Sep 20, 2023 | Blog
When looking for a company to illustrate bad PR, United Airlines is an easy choice.
From 2009’s lesson in the power of viral video (“United Breaks Guitars”) to suffocating puppies, United can be counted upon to do the wrong thing and then make it worse through horrible PR.
Perhaps its worst blunder came in 2017 when a bloodied passenger refused to be bumped and was dragged off a flight. After the video went viral, then-United CEO Oscar Munoz called the passenger “disruptive” and referred to the forcible eviction as “re-accommodating the customers.” It took a firestorm of criticism before Munoz issued a more sincere-sounding apology, but by then the damage was done.
I wasn’t privy to what happened at United that led to such horrible PR decisions, but I do know who could have prevented them – Angry Arnold. That’s my term for the outsider reality check missing from too many corporate responses to PR crises. Here’s how it could have worked at United:
The moment the passenger video went viral, United’s PR team should have designated one of its highest-ranking members as Angry Arnold. He should have been put in a room with a laptop and the following instructions: “Forget you work for United. You’re just one of the flying public and you freaking hate United. It’s lost your luggage, delayed your flights, charged you for carry-ons and forced you to squeeze into ever-shrinking seats. And, by the way, it’s making obscene profits. Now, watch on repeat this video of a dazed passenger being dragged down the aisle.”
Angry Arnold would have been left in isolation to grow ever more furious at United while the rest of the PR team worked with the C-suite to write that self-serving statement from Munoz. When it was done, they could have slid it under the door to Angry Arnold and waited for his reaction.
And he would have kicked down the door, screaming, “Are you f*@%%^ kidding me? Blaming the passenger? ‘Re-accommodating’ customers? What kind of bull*$#@ is this?”
And then United would have known Munoz’s statement wasn’t going to fly with the public.
It’s not just United that could have used an Angry Arnold to save itself from itself. So could Southwest Airlines, Facebook, Wells Fargo, Uber, and other companies that have compounded their problems by responding weakly to PR crises.
That’s because Angry Arnold’s job is to take the perspective of the public that, ultimately, will decide how well the company weathers its PR crisis. If he doesn’t buy the company’s response, neither will customers, vendors and the media.
Too often, crisis PR is captive PR. Everyone on the internal team wants to help the company in its moment of danger, but, paradoxically, that prevents them from doing the best job at it. They’re hunkered down in the corporate bunker, trying to manage the crisis without admitting fault or being too hard on the company or its leaders. Lawyers get in the mix, counseling against admitting error and watering down language as only they can. As a result, the initial response is often inadequate and defensive and makes a bad situation worse.
Angry Arnold does not have that captive perspective. He’s not going to cut the business any slack or worry about making the CEO sweat. He wants the company to come clean, fix the problem, take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again, punish those responsible, provide restitution, and beg for forgiveness.
Of course, it’s not easy to turn an internal PR employee into an Angry Arnold. He or she might be reluctant to offer frank opinions or go against the C-suite consensus, and might struggle to achieve that critical, independent perspective.
That’s why many companies benefit from using an outside agency for crisis communications and PR. While still loyal to the client, an agency has the independence and perspective to better assess what needs to be done to satisfy the public, customers, stakeholders etc. while also protecting the client.
Unleashing Angry Arnold is no fun. He bruises egos, calls for heads to roll and forces companies to do things they don’t want to do. But he should be a necessary part of any crisis PR team, even if he’s a trusted outsider.
Remember, the C-suite and the PR team are not going to determine if the crisis is handled correctly or not. The public and customers will, and listening to Angry Arnold is the best way to gauge their reaction.
by Jim Sweeney | May 31, 2023 | Blog
I’ve previously warned of the dangers of writing with vampire words – those useless words and phrases that latch on to sentences and bleed them dry of meaning and vitality; bloodsuckers like “focus” and “prioritize” and “process.”
In sticking with the horror theme, this post is about zombie sentences, those lifeless clumps of words that lurch and stagger through memos, emails, white papers and reports. Like zombies, these sentences drag themselves across the page, shuffling along without any real animate spark or personality.
Specifically, I’m talking about passive voice, the default construction for too much business writing. What’s passive voice? It’s when a noun that would be the object of an active sentence instead becomes the subject of the sentence. For example:
Active voice: Michonne cut off the zombie’s head. – The subject is Michonne, who acts on the object (the zombie’s head).
Passive voice: The zombie’s head was cut off by Michonne. – Here the zombie’s head occupies the usual position of grammatical subject and Michonne switches to the spot usually occupied by the object.
Well, so long as the zombie is decapitated, who cares?
You should.
In most cases, passive voice weakens your writing, robbing it of clarity, energy and momentum. It also implies a lack of ownership and responsibility. Consider the usual politician’s copout: Mistakes were made. The implication is that no one made the mistake; it just happened.
Like a solitary zombie, a single passive sentence does not pose much danger. But in large numbers, zombie sentences can overwhelm and devour the brains of any reader. Consider the following:
A meeting was held to discuss Q3 results and to plan initiatives for the coming year. Reports from the relevant committees were delivered and discussed by attendees. It was decided that the reports would be combined and presented to the C-suite in preparation for a companywide strategy. Further deliberations were postponed until the next meeting. Lastly, it was agreed that the Cinnabon order would be doubled for the next meeting.
Horrible, isn’t it? Sentences barely alive, yet relentless in their tedium.
It’s not uncommon for vampire words and zombie sentences to come together to form some truly ghastly writing: A consensus was reached to strategically leverage the assets in a focused implementation. This sort of writing calls for mobs with torches and pitchforks.
Passive voice can be sneaky. You know how in every zombie movie someone gets bitten and keeps it a secret and no one knows until the victim turns full zombie and attacks? Passive voice also can go undetected until the damage is done.
How to spot passive voice? Look for a form of “to be” (is, are, am, was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle (a form of the verb that typically ends in –ed), and you have passive voice, i.e. We have all been chased and bitten.
If that sounds too much like grade school grammar, here’s a simpler way that uses zombies to detect zombie sentences. If you can tack the phrase “by zombies” to the end of a sentence and it still makes sense, then you have passive voice.
The research was analyzed and a final report was delivered to the client . . . by zombies.
A search for the CEO’s replacement was initiated . . . by zombies.
Neat, huh? It’s like getting zombies to eat each other instead of us.
On TV, there is no cure for the zombie virus; the only recourse is a bullet to the brain. But there is a happy ending in business writing. Zombie sentences can be restored to life and it’s usually quite easy to do. The antidote? Use active voice, the old subject/verb/object sentence structure.
Instead of “The research was analyzed and a final report was delivered to the client” try “We analyzed the research and delivered a final report to the client.”
Instead of having something being done to someone, have someone do something.
“Further changes were made to the logo by the artist” becomes “The artist made further changes to the logo.” Cured!
Of course, there are times when it’s a good idea to use passive voice, just as it’s allowed — once in a great while — to let a zombie live. (Remember the end of Shaun of the Dead, when Shaun chains up Zombie Ed so they can still play video games?) Here’s when passive voice works:
- When you don’t know who did something or want to de-emphasize who did it: The quarantine was put into place too late to stop the outbreak.
- To emphasize an object: A zombie herd was spotted crossing the highway.
The outbreak of zombie sentences has reached pandemic levels. Keep your writing clean and aim for the head.
by Jim Sweeney | Sep 7, 2022 | Blog
Imagine your boss issues the following email at the end of the day: “I’m bringing in bagels tomorrow morning.”
Yay, bagels! You make a mental note to skip breakfast tomorrow to make room for schmear.
Then your boss emails: “I’m going to prioritize bringing in bagels tomorrow morning.”
OK, a little less definite, but still a high probability of bagels. I mean, it’s a priority, right?
Then, a third email: “I’m going to focus on prioritizing bringing in bagels tomorrow morning.”
Bagels are starting to look iffy.
And, finally, she writes: “I’m beginning the process of focusing on prioritizing bringing in bagels tomorrow morning.”
Does that leave you with any hope of bagels? No, it does not. It’s just going to be you and your Cheerios tomorrow morning.
Your boss might be every bit as sincere in her last statement as in her first, but she won’t be able to convince anyone of that. Her original statement about bringing in bagels has been diluted by the addition of “beginning the process,” “prioritize” and “focus” — vampire words and phrases that drain the vitality out of writing and weaken our communications.
Business writing is a Transylvania full of vampire words that fasten themselves onto perfectly good sentences, suck them dry and leave them limp and bloodless on the page. What should have been a simple memo or email gets cluttered with unnecessary qualifying phrases until sentences collapse of their own ponderousness and lack of clarity.
But this isn’t simply a matter of style. Vampire words also imply a lack of commitment and purpose, even a sense of self-doubt. Compare these two sentences:
Team A will analyze the results and deliver a recommendation.
Team B will focus on analyzing the results and leverage its assets to prioritize delivering a recommendation.
Which team do you trust to deliver a recommendation? The action in Team B —analyzing results and delivering a recommendation — is besieged by vampire words and left sounding uncertain and indefinite.
But there’s good news. According to folklore, vampires can’t come into your house without an invitation. Likewise, vampire words can’t enter your writing without you allowing it.
Since that’s the case, why do we invite the bloodsuckers in?
A lot of it stems from an unmerited distrust of the simple declarative sentence. Remember those grade school sentences about Dick and Jane going out to play? Or the Hemingway you read in high school? That simple, straightforward style works in business writing, as well:
We will deliver the report by the end of the month.
We will conduct an A/B test on the competing headlines and report the results.
The test group liked the blue logo better than the red one.
I know what you’re thinking: Those are short sentences composed of short words. What if people think I don’t know any big words or can’t write long sentences? What if people think I can’t twist incentive into a verb?
Rest easy. Put yourself in the shoes of the recipient of a white paper or report composed of clear, direct language and free of vampire words. Wouldn’t that be refreshing? Wouldn’t it be nice to finish the text without any lingering doubt as to what parts of it meant or whether you peered hard enough between the lines?
Communicating clearly and simply with business associates and clients – with minimal jargon as my colleague Megan Moriarty would say – might astonish them at first, but they’ll come to appreciate it. And, who knows, they might even reciprocate. Think of the misunderstandings and confusion that could be avoided.
So review your business writing and drive stakes through those vampire words. If necessary, hang a string of garlic cloves over your laptop as a reminder.
