I Hardly Know Her

 

My latest hobby has been to follow the January 6 Committee Hearings on YouTube. It’s been fascinating as witness after witness has described the behind-the-scenes activities in what is probably the most “interesting” US administrations in history on what s probably the most prominent day in American history. At the time of writing, the American news media has been focused on the testimony of Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson who has been to all intents and purposes a very credible witness (she’s been calm, collected and provided lots of specific details). To add to her credibility, the vice-chairperson of the Committee, Ms. Elizabeth Cheney then presented examples of how there were attempts to intimidate witnesses.

It goes without saying that the media has been obsessed by this and being the publicity junkie that he is, the former president has had his say of television and as expected, he’s done his best to trash Ms. Cassidy. The clip of the former president in action can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7abUPtWrP0k

 

 If you leave aside the politics (Mr. Trump being one of those people who evokes strong emotions), there are several things that can be learnt from this. While Mr. Trump is the most prominent world figure to have “issues” with his “ex-employees,” he is by no means the only businessman to have such issues. Unless one works as God’s personal valet, one is bound to come across at least one instance of employer-employee disputes in ones working life.

So, let’s start with the first point, which relates to crisis management, which is where PR consultants make their real money (a case of the client needing you more than you need the client). The first rule of crisis management is actually pretty simple – don’t let it get to crisis stage. Sure, there are situations where one doesn’t have any control over. Examples include things like a plane crashing or terrorist holding hostages in your hotel. However, whilst these instances exist, most things can actually be avoided if you plan for them. In Public Relations terms – better spend on “issues management” than “crisis” management. As long as you anticipate issues and have a plan to deal with them, chances are you’ll be OK (which was one of my tasks in my last agency job when the agency I worked for had to anticipate issues for the PUB).

These days, I don’t deal with crisis communications via the media. However, I do deal with a lot of angry people who are put in crappy situation. My first instinct is to try to bring the temperature down because, you’re not going to achieve anything by yelling back at yelling people and the cost of pushing people beyond their limit is not worth it (sure, the guy goes to jail and you can sue but what’s the point if you end up a broken nose). Don’t let it get to that point.

In the case of the January 6 riots, it would have been much better to avoid them and plan properly for a come back in 2024. The plan was a bit too obvious (it took my Young Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC to point out that there was a reason why he rushed to get “his justice” onto the Supreme Court before the election) and as everyone who’s testified has pointed out, they were on dubious legal grounds to begin with and operationally – very unlikely to succeed. A wise man would have not gone ahead with something as audacious as a “riot” when everyone had said it was unlikely to succeed in its initial aims and would give you legal issues. Given that the Trump Organisation currently has plenty of legal issues, one has to question why he’d want another one.

Secondly, there’s a golden rule about slagging people off. Generally speaking, employees should never ever slag off their old bosses. It’s a red flag for potential employers. If anything, employees should always speak of their former employers in glowing terms. However, there are certain exceptions and variations to this rule.

The main point is legal. Most sensible employees will always speak well of their previous employers. However, the former employee should always ensure that the employee has no reason to turn against them, particularly if it involves anything legal. Both Ms. Hutchinson and Mr. Rusty Bowers are Republicans who have no reason to speak against the Trump. However, both were in a legal bind and could not give “favourable” testimony as to what they saw and communicated with the Trump team.

Then, just as employees should never slag off their employers, there is also a case for the reverse, especially when you’re in charge of an organisation with a high staff turnover. Sure, most people can accept that you had a problematic employee or two but when you start having issues with every employee……people are bound to wonder about you. The guys who do this, tend to be the type who get off of believing that they’re wonderfully credible and have the power to “make” or “break” careers – hence “I’ll talk bad about you,” becomes one of the threats they’ll use (to which one would actually be grateful if they slagged you off because its part of their nature and if they didn’t – it would be out of character). Prime example, was how Trump complained about Jim Mathis, who didn’t slag him off directly in his resignation.

If anything, one should always maintain a decent and friendly enough relationship with former employees. You never know how they may be useful to you in the future. One of the most interesting examples of this comes from my former clients at Polaris Software Labs (Intellect Design Arena as they’re now known). Each ex-employee has the potential to learn the tricks from other people and who knows if they can come back and add those experiences to you.  A wise HR practitioner needs to treat everyone coming through the company’s doors as a seed that can be used even after the employee leaves. Treating every employee who leaves as an enemy is only going to create more problems, which is inevitably bad for business.