Read on Twitter
When I’m easing my way into retirement teaching comms strategy in an unambitious HE institution somewhere (my DMs are open) the current gov’s comms performance around #COVID will offer rich meat for case studies to use in lectures 1/13
Crisis comms demands we hear from the person or people in charge, so let’s focus on Boris Johnson. Most of his cabinet seem to be pound shop populists or so lacking in substance as to be pretty much irrelevant anyway. His blasé comms style was perfectly suited to life as the 2/13
pretender to the throne, untroubled by the need to understand detail or actually do anything. It exploited one of his key comms strengths - the ability to wield a good turn of phrase. It’s no coincidence that he was at his most vulnerable when he was Foreign 3/13
Secretary. Anyway we have been in crisis mode for the last 9 months and what were strengths are now liabilities. You don’t build an effective crisis comms approach on bluster and chutzpah. But let’s examine how he has performed against the core elements you want to see in an 4/13
Effective comms response.
Empathy and sympathy - comms is human to human contact, it is crucial to either connect with people’s feelings or acknowledge how they are feeling. This is as much about delivery as substance. Unfortunately Johnson can’t do it, he comes across as 5/13
Empathy and sympathy - comms is human to human contact, it is crucial to either connect with people’s feelings or acknowledge how they are feeling. This is as much about delivery as substance. Unfortunately Johnson can’t do it, he comes across as 5/13
someone untouched by the worries and realities of most people’s lives. You can overcome that by talking about your privilege, meeting people in a meaningful way, listening to their experiences and relating them back in your comms, but he’s done none of this 6/13
Next, you set out what you know and what you are seeking to find out - Johnson makes the mistake many make by seeking to present omniscience. His audience isn’t stupid, we know he doesn’t know everything. We would be a lot more reassured if he spoke about the uncertainties 7/13
and then crucially what gov is doing to tackle those uncertainties. Projecting omniscience always bites you on the arse later down the line - as demonstrated multiple times during this crisis. Good comms is human to human, and we all know things are complicated so say so 8/13
Following that you communicate the decisive, proportionate action you are taking and reassurance on the impact of that action - this is the hardest bit to get right, but Johnson and the gov more widely have generally flunked it. The one exception would be 9/13
the furlough scheme when it was originally rolled out. Since then, we’ve had an odd mix of bluster, prevarication and last minute reversals, all wrapped up in wild promises that things will be better by such and such a time, all subsequently broken. 10/13
The schools fiasco is just the latest of these, made worse by the PM going on Andrew Marr and offering more empty reassurance and vague promises of tens of millions vaccinated by Easter. It is difficult to discern a comms strategy in all this, other than one familiar 11/13
to parents of small children the world over - what can I say or promise to get this small child to walk to the next bench in the park / to get in the bath / go to sleep? This gets to the heart of the issue with Johnson and the gov. A comms strategy is only as good as 12/13
the overall strategy it is built on. What’s increasingly obvious is that there isn’t one. No amount of good comms can overcome that 13/13
