Bait and Switch (19 page)

means of networking. I had already attempted to follow up on the He makes it clear that it is something of an honor even to be tip I got at Fuddruckers, and had contacted the Georgia invited to spend my money in this way; they don't take every branch of the Public Relations Society of America, but its group body. "A person with an overblown ego, for example, is not for PR folks in transition no longer seemed to be functioning. Ron going to do too well in the job-search process." He, Ron, made a solid case for renewed efforts in this direction: not only do would not have come to lunch with me if he didn't know that

"we have the same values." I nod emphatically, not sure what 44 Qorvis's principal client, I later learn, is Saudi Arabia, which would have represented a considerable ethical stretch even for me.

I need to network with actually employed PR people, but it spring day, lit with occasional flashes of sunshine, and I resent wouldn't hurt to use my "transition time" to expand my PR skills being condemned to the tomb-like stillness of artificial air and and hence my résumé.

light. But there's work to be done. I arrive well before nine to get At the PRSA web site, which I repair to almost daily for job a head start on the networking, and quickly introduce myself to a listings, I comb through upcoming conferences and finally settle half dozen of the thirty or so assembled PR people, asking them on a conveniently timed "professional development seminar" on each what sort of crises they face in their industries, outside of the theme of "crisis communications management," which will the obvious tornadoes and terrorist attacks. I meet Lori from include what to do when, for example, "the activists attack" or the Coca-Cola, whose concern is product safety, Roger from Allstate CEO is indicted. It's a huge investment—an $800 fee plus (disgruntled policyholders), two people from a poultry-travel and two nights in a hotel—and it's not for just anyone off processing company (avian flu), and several people who work for the street. The application form on the web site demands that I list hospitals (unexplained deaths and neighborhood resistance to a current employer, and isn't satisfied until I finally come up with territorial expansion). Aha: I had thought of the corporate

"Alexander and Associates." Even if it doesn't pan out as a source world as an impenetrable fortress, but it turns out to be under of contacts, the session should be, at the very least, a rare heavy siege.

glimpse into the corporate world at its most vulnerable, and a At precisely 9:00 A.M. our leader, Jim Lukaszewski, opens the corporate vulnerability can always be translated into a potential seminar by announcing, "I'll be driving this bus . . . unless someone job. You have activists storming your headquarters while the decides to topple me"—a curious possibility to implant in us, CEO is being led off in chains? I can help, or at least I will now especially given Jim's obvious "likability." He flatters us by find out how to.

declaring us "a group of very senior people" who just need to The seminar is held in a hotel in downtown Boston, in yet learn to think "from a different perspective," which is a another windowless meeting room. Outside, it's a blustery

"management perspective." Forget dealing with the media; our challenge is to "get to the table," where we'll have the attention activists and CEO indictments, but almost all of the first day and of management, and then to communicate with them in a much of the second is devoted to the delicate internal problem language they can understand, "on the spot" and "in real time."

of "getting to the table" and attracting the attention of management.

Once, things took place over the course of days, but now, thanks to This would seem to be pretty far from my own concerns, since e-mail, et cetera, we are talking minutes. When a crisis breaks I can't even get in the door, and am unlikely to be allowed out, you have a "golden hour" in which to craft your response and anywhere near the table without an apron on and a tray in my hand.

sell it to management.

But I'd at least like a glimpse into the inner sanctum that I may We start with a video on the cyanide-in-the-Tylenol case, never penetrate in person—behind the glass walls and the moving from the tragic deaths to their redemption with the in-checkpoints, in the "C-suites" where the CEOs, CFOs, COOS, et troduction of the tamper-proof safety seal. So far so good. I am cetera, make their decisions. Jim, who has advised scores of mightily relieved that there's nothing being said that I can't companies during outbreaks of crisis and appears to be a heavy understand—no mysterious jargon or fake PR science—and hitter in the PRSA, may be the perfect guide.

nothing being recommended that I couldn't actually do (as-The most important thing to understand about manage-suming no ethical hesitancy, that is). Maybe this
is
the right ment, he tells us, is that they are different from you and mein calling for me. I like my fellow seminar participants, none of whom particular, they are severely "out of touch." As an example of out-appears to look down on me for being a "consultant" or exhibits the of-touchness, he cites the CEO who asked him (Jim renders unbearable upbeatness that Kimberly insisted is a prerequisite for this question in a faux snarling voice), "When is this environmental employment. Jim even has a sense of humor, or at least a fad going to go away?" And you see, he didn't get it, Jim says in willingness to insert a wicked little "heh heh" here and there in his his own voice, because this "environmental fad" isn't going away; spiel.

it's only getting bigger.

I am eager to get onto the juicy things like antiglobalization And why is top management so out of touch? Because they are so isolated and, to tell the truth, idle. "All of you have been on the Before I can get carried away with sympathy for these management floors of your company," Jim says. "Notice how doomed and lonely men, though, Jim is outlining how they quiet it is up there? Because no one is
doing
anything there.

spend their time: less than 5 percent on decision making, 40

Oh, there are a few meetings now and then . . ." We have to percent on "articulating" those decisions, 40 percent on understand that the people at the top are lonely people—

"teaching, motivating, and coaching," 20 percent on "repeating very lonely. There's only one CEO, so he or she—Jim is and explaining," 5 percent on "admiration building" (that is, scrupulous in his gender inclusiveness even when it's hardly

"looking for compliments"), and 1 percent on "reputation building"

necessary, as in the case of CEOs—has no one to talk to, and (it's not clear whether this is the reputation of the company or of everyone around him or her is "waiting to see how far they'll the CEO himself). No, it doesn't add up to 100 percent, but that's fall." In fact, the average tenure for a CEO is down to a mere because CEOs are responsible "24/7." Jim immediately contradicts thirty months, Jim claims. Thus the CEO is the last to hear the this, however, by observing that, any time you really need them, gossip, except in the case he cites of a CEO who was a smoker like in a crisis, top management is in Bimini or Barbados.

and had to pursue his habit on the roof of the building along At this point Jim is beginning to sound like an antiglobal-with his nicotine-oriented underlings.

ization activist himself: he's on the environmentalists' side; he's All this casts an entirely new light on the CEO, who tends to portrayed CEOs as vain, curmudgeonly fellows who spend be portrayed as an overpaid tyrant, but might be better de-large chunks of their time basking in Barbados or swanning scribed as one of the mythical kings in James Frazer's classic around looking for compliments. But guess what? We owe book
The Golden Bough,
who is sacrificed in the spring to them our total loyalty. Our goal in fact is to become their fructify the soil. Or the Aztec sacrificial victims who are fat-trusted
advisers—consiglieri
is the word that comes to mind.

tened and coddled for weeks before the ceremonial excision of their Sometimes we (PR people) get confused and think we're working hearts.

for the media. "How many of you have been journalists?" he asks, and about a fourth of the people in the room raise their tory and hands-on, with a chance to workshop their way hands. Well, forget all that. "Reporters are fundamentally through various mock crises. It is odd, in fact, that while Jim unhappy people." As PR people, we don't even have to return stresses the need for brevity in communications with manage-their phone calls, he tells us—to a visible shiver of discomfort in ment, he has no such constraint in dealing with us. After all, the room. Concentrate on solving the crisis, or getting man-most of what he's been telling us is already in the notebook he's agement to solve the crisis, and ignore the media till you're passed out to us, available for reading at our leisure. Maybe, after so ready to talk to them.

many struggles to get to the table, he's just reveling in this It's the internal culture of the corporation, as seen by Jim, opportunity to get up on it and dance for hours on end.

that fascinates me. The picture he paints resembles one of the I firm up my networking with Lori, learning that Coke en-royal courts of Europe, circa 1600, as described by Castiglione or, dured a major management shake-up for failing to deal promptly closer to our own time, the historian Norbert Elias. We, the PR

with a bacterial-tainting issue in Europe. I have a long talk people, are the courtiers who both despise the king and eagerly with the woman who handles PR for the National Forest press around him, anxious for a moment of royal attention.

Service in Montana, that being my home state, about the We must learn to speak in low, quiet tones, always framing relative merits of Livingston and Missoula. I chat with our advice "strategically" and never wasting words on anything he Alexandra, who is wearing blue jeans and works for a California already knows. Only if we can insinuate ourselves into his company that arranges overseas outsourcing for American firms.

confidence can we hope to save the country—I mean, the

"Why should people be angry at you, when these firms are going company—and of course all the credit will go to him.

to outsource anyway?" I ask. "That's what I'm always saying," she tells At our group lunch I learn that some of my fellow partici-me, looking harried by invisible pursuers.

pants are getting impatient with the endless lecture on dealing I approach Roger from State Farm and ask him to outline for with management. They expected something more participa-me, as a newcomer to the corporate world, his "typical day."

When it turns out to involve ten hours at his desk, I ask whether never forget it. He gives us the case of a real crisis he successfully the demands decrease as he rises in the hierarchy. For a moment managed: A hospital in Philly wanted the city's permission to place his smile fades; no, with each accomplishment, the expectations a helipad on its roof. This was, Jim lets us know, completely only increase. Everyone graciously accepts my card and promises unnecessary, since there were already four helipads on hospital roofs to contact me should any job come to their attention.

within a one-mile radius, but a helipad is a "prestige thing" for a In the afternoon session I have plenty of time to ponder the hospital. So what did Jim do to counter community opposition to the paradox of Jim, searching for clues as to what is expected of a helipad? He organized a door-to-door pro-helipad campaign. The serious PR professional. He is nice, no doubt about it, even campaign was successful; the hospital got its helipad and no liberal in certain ways. When the subject of unions briefly doubt the opportunity to treat the stress-related disorders comes up, and he remarks that they're "dying," someone in the occasioned by the heightened noise level.

group interjects "not fast enough! "—leading Jim to defend the Then there is the hypothetical case of community hostility to a working class. We need to "look at unions with understand-big-box store—Wal-Mart comes to mind—in which we are ing." "Businesses own everything," he continues in a Marxist invited to come up with all the good these entities do: create jobs, vein. "All the workers own is their contract." His own father give consumers choices, pay taxes, et cetera. After these benefits was a blue-collar union member, and "if you want to see have been listed on the flip chart, he surprises us by announcing democracy in action, go to a union meeting." At one point, he that "they're not worth mentioning," because everyone knows reveals that four people on the staff of his own PR firm are currently they're not true. "So how
do
you promote the big-box store in the involved—in their private lives, that is—on the community side community?" I raise my hand to ask. Jim says, "We'll get to that,"

of various struggles. "Activism is fun," he confides, "especially but we never do. The point, he says, is we have to start by when you spend all day being a corporate apologist. Heh heh."

making management aware of how hollow the company's But in our professional lives, we are the antiactivists and can promises sound. Then, presumably, we can launch our own pro-

big-box community-organizing drive.

the whole point of a college education, which is the almost At some point in the middle of the second afternoon, I begin to universal requirement for white-collar employment, is that it trains fantasize about hijacking this "bus," but for purely physical you to sit still and keep your eyes open. At the moment, I'd rather be reasons. I have been sitting for more than a day now, not count-waitressing.

ing the day of air travel getting here, and have just about The last thing I remember before falling into a narcotized exhausted my capacity for immobility. The disks in my spinal col-trance that may have been actual sleep is a long personal di-umn are fusing into knots of pure pain; deep vein thrombosis gression into the history of the seated posture. When did has set into the lower legs; muscles all over my body are liquefying chairs come into common use? Certainly no more than a few from disuse. Everyone else seems content to be paralyzed, thousand years ago, well after our muscular-skeletal structure although there are ever more frequent trips to the achieved its modern form. We are designed for running and bathroom or for cell phone use in the corridor, and the Coke walking, squatting and lounging, not for sitting upright day after gal has been covertly answering e-mail on her BlackBerry. It day.