Annals of Communications -- How Public Officials Communicate, and What Everyone Can Learn From Them
"Hoisted on his own petard" -- that's the favorite line that pundits and bloggers are plying today in their many dissections of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution-ring scandal. The quote is attributed to Shakespeare -- our timeless interpreter of tragedy -- who, as Johnny once noted, said just about everything.
But what does the phrase mean? Simply: that the weapon you yield (the petard) can be used against you; in other words, "live by the sword, die by the sword," which is one of the oldest, cruellest, but most enduring laws of leadership and communication. Which is why today's scandal is generating so little sympathy for the Governor of New York -- a public official who rose to fame for rooting out the evil, corrupt, and weak in government -- and creating a "bull market in schadenfreude" in an otherwise dull and depressing day on Wall Street.
But what really caught my attention today was how poorly the governor and his administration handled the crisis today. Common wisdom: when there's a crisis, there are at least three things you must do, and do them quickly: (1) acknowledge fault, fully and completely; (2) apologize to all the people you have harmed; (3) make amends with the people you have harmed. While Spitzer's sixty-second press conference today (way too short) touched on all three, the narrative was vague, incomplete, and left too many points unanswered. Was he apologizing to his family only (big sympathy for them today), or to the people who elected him as well (he said sorry to both, but there was little emphasis on the latter). Was he making the argument that the personal can really be separated from the political ("I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good, and doing what is best for the state of New York.") And what did he mean at the close, when he said "I will report back to you in short order"? It was an odd note, as if he had just been reprimanded by a commanding officer. I'm hearing that the lawyers helped to write this speech -- Spitzer may be holding onto his job to negotiate a deal with prosecutors -- so we should not be surprised.
Not that it would have helped Spitzer very much to repair his reputation (that will take some time), but the questions that remain are only likely to fuel the darkest (the shade in schadenfreude) speculations from both friends and enemies. Better to come completely out of the shadows and into the light. In hard times, half measures don't work. Unless, of course, it's all over, and the final curtain on your public life is dropping. I believe Shakespeare said that, too.
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