J.T.’s Gift to Esso

When it comes to your corporate reputation, your credibility as an organization, small things matter.

About a month ago, I noticed these small red stickers on traffic stop signs in our area. They were placed right underneath the “STOP” and they read “The Tar Sands”. I really hadn’t given much thought to issues behind the tar sands projects until that point. But it did actually cause me to reflect upon why someone would be so passionate about this issue. After all, the big oil companies really do care about the environment and people, right? One small incident changed my perception.

A couple of years ago, my young nephew was commencing training to become a police officer. This required a move on his part. I offered my truck and my back in the effort. He was quite grateful, placing a $25 Esso gift card in a handwritten Thank You card. While I didn’t need the gas money, I didn’t want to offend him by returning it.

I thought I would hang onto it and use it for something special for our family; a nice outing somewhere, in honour of my nephew. That special trip happened a week ago. I went to use “J.T.’s gift”, only to have the clerk tell me that there was never any money on the card. Our family felt very bad for my nephew, thinking that a clerk had scammed him by taking his money and giving him an empty card when he bought it. I thought I should call Esso to let them know what happened.

Well, as it turns out, the card had an expiry date on it. The “gift” no longer belonged to our family. Apparently, Esso needed it far more than we did. I was told that there was “no way to reactivate the card” and that I should have read the (extremely) fine print on the back. If you read Imperial Oil’s 2008 Annual Report (Esso’s Canadian parent company), you now know that they only made $3,899,999,975 in profit through operations…the other $25 that went towards their $3.9 billion in profit came from J.T.

Why is this in a public relations blog? It’s simple. Lawmakers, regulators and average citizens all have a hand in making critically important decisions surrounding Esso’s business practices. Do we need to question our beliefs about them further or take what they say at face value? From the perspective of a couple of people who wear the Canadian flag on their uniform, Esso’s business practices appear fundamentally un-Canadian. How does one trust them as guardians of our environment? How does one trust them to deliver a quality product? It’s about values; whether you type them into a corporate report or whether you really live them.

It’s a lesson in how you do (or don’t) maintain the public’s trust. If J.T. and my family cannot trust Esso with $25, how on earth can we believe anything they say when it comes to environmental stewardship or corporate governance?

Follow up: White Shirt Concedes

This is a follow-up to my October 15th post.

It is now reported that the police chief is claiming that his previous statements about crime being down in the city were misrepresented. Yeah, okay.

What you are actually seeing played out is a full-scale retreat by the chief; the result of a very effective public relations campaign carried out by the police association president - blue shirt wins.

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/news/Default.aspx?cid=68838

Blue Shirt vs White Shirt vs Suit

When an internal disagreement goes public and turns into an issue for an organization, it becomes far less a matter of communicating effectively internally but almost entirely a battle for winning public support. And winning public support generally leads to a position of strength internally.

Recently, a police association president went public with his concerns about officer and public safety. He was very clear in communicating his position: the city is dangerous and senior police administration and the police service board are not willing to acknowledge it. He asserted that both actually fought his association when they lobbied for more officers on patrol. The validity of either side’s position is not the subject of this post. My focus is on who won the battle for public support, and why.

The police chief and police service board chairman did speak publicly in an effort to rebut the association’s position. But, in short, they lost the battle. Why? They lost on this issue because their messages didn’t resonate; they were in direct conflict with the views of the average person on the street. And they failed to acknowledge the fact. More importantly, the messages were in direct conflict with “more junior” members of the police service – the ones on the street who live the danger every day they put on the uniform.

The association president went public and spoke in common language; direct and bold, and avoided “bureaucratese”. He spoke to citizens in terms they understood. The police chief and board chair spoke, one and two days later, of high-level statistics and trends. In certain situations, that may work - but not here. The issue was well beyond the point where quoting statistics would have any effect - other than demonstrating their disconnect with the cops they lead and the public they serve.

The association president wears a uniform with a blue shirt. He spoke from the heart, assumed professional risk without personal gain and gained the initiative by staking out his position first. A senior rank and/or impressive title can actually present a barrier to effective communication; relying on them for credibility is a recipe for failure. The matter of who owns credibility is more complex than the rank, the title or the suit. This is an excellent example of a situation where two men failed to acknowledge this complexity and adjust their approach accordingly.

Simply put, the cop wearing the blue shirt won out over the cop wearing the white shirt, and the chairman in the suit.

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/News/?cid=67141