Tag Archives: reputation management

Gopher Athletics PR: Both Lucky and Good

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minnesota_gopher_mascot_sadIn the wake of University of Minnesota Athletic Director Norwood Teague’s resignation due to sexual harassment of University employees, the University’s PR team is getting glowing marks for the work they did on crisis communications management.

Public relations firefighters tend to get too much credit when things go well, and too much blame when things go poorly. The truth is, with any crisis there are many uncontrollable factors in play that aid or cripple even the most talented PR pros.

First They Got Lucky

The University’s PR people did plenty of things well, but they also got extremely lucky.  For instance, the harassed employees didn’t go directly to the media before the University had a chance to discover exactly what had happened, disclose, apologize and force a resignation. If the victims had told their stories a little bit at a time to the media and blindsided the University, there would have been a steady stream of  stories in which the University would have looked clueless, hapless, defensive and unresponsive to the victims.

The University was also fortunate that they had clear evidence of wrong-doing available – very graphic text messages.  This immediately gave the University the ability to swiftly secure a resignation before facing media scrutiny. Without that evidence, the University could have faced a prolonged “he said, she said” battle on the front pages, with no firm evidence available to help University leaders  bring swift closure to the University, and justice to the victims (see Clarence Thomas).

Then They Did Good Work

Having said all that, the University public relations team did seem to do many things very skillfully.

Disclosure to Closure In One Day. Unless there are more disclosures coming, the PR team seems to have dumped all of the evidence in one day. Mr. Teague has confessed, disclosed, apologized and resigned in one fell swoop. They may be pretty close to having full disclosure and closure on the same day, which is a rarity in the world of crisis communications.

This should help the University limit the number of days this horrendous story has legs. The only thing worse than a reputation-damaging story is multiple days of reputation-damaging stories, and this PR team did what they could to ensure this didn’t become a long-running soap opera.

Friday News Dump. This PR team also got the story out on a Friday. This is an tried and true crisis communications move, and it makes sense. Disclosing it on Friday, puts much of the bad news into Friday night and Saturday, when news consumption is lowest and the public is distracted for a couple of days, especially during Minnesota’s scarce summer days.

No Victim-Blaming. Importantly, the University didn’t directly or indirectly blame the victims.  In the coverage I saw, there was no partially defending Teague by mentioning that the abused employees did something to somehow encourage Teague. While this may seem like an obvious thing to avoid, many make this mistake.

No Hiding. Finally, they didn’t stay in the bunker. A lot of  proud, stubborn, and arrogant leaders refuse to talk to the media when under siege. That didn’t happen in this case. Mr. Teague spoke.  University President Eric Kaler spoke. There were no hands in cameras and no stories reporting that University officials “refused to comment,” which so often makes institutions and people appear to be defensive, secretive, bumbling and guilty.

The one part of the Friday news coverage that didn’t pass the smell test was Mr. Teague seemingly blaming all of his behavior on alcohol abuse. Teague may very well need help with alcoholism, but he also needs help learning how to respect women who clearly and repeatedly send signals that they aren’t interested. But I assume that the University public relations team can’t be blamed for that bit of weasel-speak, because I imagine Mr. Teague wrote his own statement, or at least heavily edited it.

While the University public relations team got very lucky on some big things, their handling of this crisis turned what could have been weeks of really horrible stories into fewer days of horrible stories. In crisis communications, that’s often as good as it gets.

Zygi’s Blind Spot

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When you’re a wealthy, secretive, pin stripe wearing New Jersey family who is found guilty of a multi-million dollar racketeering charge, you are fighting a certain stereotype.   Francis Ford Coppola-inspired biases are inevitable.   Many Minnesotans are too polite to say it out loud, but they’re thinking it.

Zygi_Wilf_undisclosedThe Wilf’s have chosen to become very public figures, so they need to be aware of how the news of the last few weeks is effecting their public image.  But instead of mitigating the reputation damage, they are aggravating it.

This week in court, the Wilfs argued that they cannot disclose information about their wealth.  The refusal to disclose is bad enough.  Secrecy fosters suspicion, and plays into the stereotype.  But the rationale they provided for not disclosing is even worse.

“Unfortunately, in the world in which we all live, it is not uncommon to read articles in the press describing plots by malicious individuals targeting well known high net worth individual[s] and their families for physical attack and extortion.”

Did Mario Puzo write that statement for him?  “Attackers?”  “Extorters?”  When scenarios like that are described by a rich guy convicted of racketeering and fraud in New Jersey, many are going to hear Speak Softly Love in the background.  Maybe they shouldn’t, but they will.

Mr. Wilf’s growing reputation problems run the risk of creating business problems.  Those personal seat licenses start to feel like “an offer you can’t refuse.”  The $575 million partnership Minnesota taxpayers are about to enter into with the Wilf’s starts to feel more shady and risky.

To be clear, I obviously don’t wish an attack or extortion plot on Mr. Wilf.  But let’s be real.  It’s hardly a  secret that Mr. Wilf is a very wealthy man.  After all, he flaunts a $19 million apartment on Park Avenue, and it is regularly reported that he owns huge real estate developments and Adrian Peterson.

Therefore, any would-be extortionist or attacker already knows that Mr. Wilf is in possession of a boat load of money.  If the court puts a  number in place of “boat load” it will not further endanger Mr. Wilf.

So, disclose already.  Act like someone who has nothing to hide.  Stand up and proudly say “This is what I have, and this is how I earned it.”  Don Corleone would never say that.   If you don’t want Minnesotans to fall prey to the stereotype and subsequently become wary of entering into a $575 million partnership with you, stop feeding the stereotype and let the sunshine in.

– Loveland

Note:  This post was featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost.