The General Rule: When there is a serious issue, strategy rules even if tactics are more appealing.
From a welfare point-of-view the live export crisis is appalling; from a PR point-of-view, it’s at a very interesting juncture.
The industry can either work towards putting a lid on the media coverage or it can stay out in the open. Well, it doesn’t really have that choice – because to put a lid on it will mean the community distrust will fester and the industry will almost certainly be forced to close. But staying in the spotlight and revealing an ugly truth is tough. We can all talk about being open and honest, but when you’re in a dire position like the live export trade, it takes bravery to walk the talk.
(By a strange twist, for Animals Australia – the organisation that exposed the Indonesian cruelty – to flourish it needs animal cruelty to continue, while the cattle industry’s survival is dependent on it stopping. But that’s a topic for a later – on Objectives.)
When an issue like this becomes a crisis, it has to be acted on. From the Corporate Affairs point of view:
- The danger zone – Stage One – is that period between when it is discovered and before a fix-it program can be put in place.
- Stage Two is a little, but not much, easier. This is the remediation period, when the problem is being fixed. It can be ugly too, but experience tells us the public will tolerate it, if the problem is not too great. Generally speaking people are tolerant as long as there is integrity of purpose – as long as they can see that something is being done that they approve; a step in the right direction.
- Stage Three is when the problem is fixed and the problem is a memory – the period for reputation recovery.
What to do? Tactically, an industry or company can gain some time with some short term fixes – in the case of the live export industry: put teams of animal welfare inspectors into Indonesia; shift blame to the Indonesians; undertake the major effort in government relations to calm the nerves in Canberra; spend buckets on money. But the massive strategic problem for the live export trade is identifying what it needs to do to gain its social licence to operate. That is a much bigger issue. And much thornier.
One of the cleverest companies we work with – a mining company – has retained 4 companies of PR consultants, not for their tactical skills (which are there in abundance) but for their strategic skills – the individuals have been retained to think, and advise. The individuals are de facto futurists. We meet about once a quarter to review the company’s progress at fitting into the community. Pity the beleaguered coal seam gas industry doesn’t take a leaf from this company’s book. The skill in strategy development is working out what to do now to receive an outcome later: in a few months; or a few years. If a company (or in the case of live exports, an industry) has a really thorny problem, what does it have to do long term to gain its social licence to operate: to gain social acceptance? Sometimes it’s difficult. What would you do?
One reason it takes brainpower with really complex problems is that a decision now may take 3,4,5 years to have an impact. Tactics are so different: they have immediate consequences; the public likes them as does the Board or the Executive.
That’s why success always requires a short term solution (tactics) and a longer term strategy. It’s relatively easy to do tactics; it’s harder to do strategy. Which is why so many don’t do it. The easy way out is to leap-frog from one short term solution to the next. It looks good for those that live in the present (politicians, journalists). But eventually the public tires of it
