Accentuate the Positive, 3.0

Reputation is built by the matching of deeds and words. You make a promise, you back it up. Reputations are destroyed by hypocrisy — breaking a promise you have made.

When the broken promise stems from faulty execution, the mea culpa is easier. When the broken promise develops from selfish motives or a lack of character, the damage takes much longer to repair.

The ACLU has some explaining to do.

The organization for decades has tried to become synonymous with “free speech,” yet now is cracking down on stray messages from within. The new guidelines are there to prevent board members from criticizing any aspect of decided policy. Stephanie Strom writes in the New York Times:

“Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement,” the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.

Yes, it is important for an organization to speak with one voice. The reason, in this instance, becomes particularly telling:

“Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising”

As in many cases, the bottom line really is the bottom line.

Of course, the policy is not sitting well with some current and former board members, who feel strongly that free speech is free speech is free speech:

Nat Hentoff, a writer and former A.C.L.U. board member, was incredulous. “You sure that didn’t come out of Dick Cheney’s office?” he asked.

“For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members I can’t think of anything more contrary to the reason the A.C.L.U. exists,” Mr. Hentoff added.

Later in the article, a board member recounts getting privately chastised for a facial expression. Another was voted off for publicly debating a position.

For an organization that lays claim to non-partisan support, this is a clear violation of vision. This can’t be fixed with a “my bad” press release. This is the sort of crisis that only regime change can repair.

This would be a good time to look at your corporate mission statement. Or update it, even.

Following up on yesterday’s theme, body language is the essential component in communications. If they can see you or hear you, how you look and how you sound matters more than what you say.

Want proof? Look at the reviews for Tony Snow’s start in the White House briefing scrum:

McClellan’s style—a few posts ago I called it “strategic non-communication”—was the big loser in press accounts of Snow’s debut.

* Financial Times: “Snow, a former Fox News presenter, brought a new, idiosyncratic style to the daily briefing that had regressed to an arid showcase of administration talking points.”

* Dana Milbank in the Washington Post: “Rather than repeating rote refusals to answer questions, Snow had a quick comeback for every occasion.”

* William Triplett, Daily Variety: “Unlike his predecessor, Scott McClellan, who developed a rep as a brusque stonewaller, Snow, his hands casually holding the podium sides, generally engaged questioners with eye contact and a seeming desire to answer.”

* Vaughn Ververs at CBS Public Eye: “Where McClellan often appeared robotic and repetitive, Snow was much more expansive, getting into areas of broad strategy and seeming engaged as much in the debate of the immigration issue as in an explanation of the president’s position.”

* Michael Scherer in Salon: “[Tony Snow] is, in other words, a human being, and that makes him a dramatic departure from his predecessor, Scott McClellan, the doughy master of equivocation and non sequitur who behaved most days like a misfiring automaton, barely betraying any light behind his eyes.”

If your talking points sound like talking points, the message you are really sending is “I’m clueless, I’m hiding something, and I’m out of touch with reality.”

A little sincerity goes a long way, even when delivering news (or not delivering it) that one might not like.