Imagine the following conversation between a father and
son:
Father: It’s time
to let your brother play with the truck.
Son: No.
Father: I said you
could have it for five more minutes, and it’s been five minutes, so give your
brother the truck.
Son: No! It’s mine!
(The father takes
the truck away and hands him a toy car, and his son starts crying)
Father: Look, the
car will be just as fun, and it’s the right thing to do for your brother.
It’s not hard to understand the father’s mindset. He’s
just trying to be fair to his sons, and doesn’t feel he’s done anything wrong.
The reaction? That’s probably just because the kid doesn’t yet understand the
importance of sharing, which was why the father explained that giving the truck
away was the right thing for his son to do.
From an outside perspective, though, it’s clear that this
situation could have been handled better. This brings me to the news item I
wanted to analyze as something like a business case.
At the time of this writing, Rogers Communications, owner
of the Toronto Blue Jays is mired in what many agree is a public relations nightmare.
What led to this crisis? Here’s the general idea: last year, Rogers attempted
to surreptitiously find a replacement for outgoing President of the Toronto
Blue Jays, Paul Beeston. News about their search attempts leaked to the public.
Beeston probably knew his days with the Jays were numbered, so it wasn’t long before
he announced that he would step down at the end of the 2015 Major League
Baseball (MLB) season. The search for Beeston’s replacement continued until
August 31st, 2015, when Rogers announced that Mark Shapiro would
become the new president of the Jays starting on November 1st, 2015.
Incidentally, the General Manager of the Toronto Blue
Jays, Alex Anthopolous had a contract slated to end on October 31st,
2015. Ordinarily, such an arrangement would be perfect for an organization; a
subordinate’s contract ending just before a new executive steps in, enables the
new executive to freely select a candidate who can operate best under his
supervision. There’s just one small twist in this story. Alex Anthopolous is
incredibly revered by his peers, his staff, and the Blue Jays’ fan base. He was
largely considered to be the one responsible for acquiring all the best players
his team could afford in the previous offseason and trade deadline that pushed
his team to have a stellar second half of the 2015 season. That led the team to
its first postseason appearance in the last 22 years. It was such a remarkable
feat, that his peers honoured him with an “Executive of the Year” award. As
expected, Alex Anthopolous was offered a contract extension from Mark Shapiro
and Rogers. He opted to walk away. Anthopolous believed that the organization
wouldn’t be the right “fit” for him anymore.
A huge portion of the Blue Jays fan base was outraged.
Alex Anthopolous was the one who engineered the Jays’ first playoff appearance
in 22 years. How many more painstaking years of waiting will there be until
their next meaningful attempt at the World Series with the leadership change? They
finally had something good going, and now there’s a dramatic change to the
organization…that truly stings.
Since he declined the offer, Alex Anthopolous has vaguely
tried to assure the public that Rogers and Shapiro treated him very well. There
was no ill will among them. He assured that the decision he made was solely
his; it should be completely on him. Mark Shapiro hasn’t said a word. He didn’t
want to make any statements until his contract came into effect on November 1st.
Yet among the three parties involved, it was Rogers’ responses that intrigue me
the most from a psychological, and business perspective.
Rogers
issued a press release, and this is what they had to say:
Alex has done a
terrific job as GM of the Blue Jays over the past six seasons, and we would
have loved it if he stayed with the club. Like the fans, we too are
disappointed he has chosen not to accept our five-year contract offer, but we
wish him the very best. Alex leaves behind an outstanding front office team and
coaching staff that played a key role in shaping the team’s great run this
season. They will continue to operate in leadership roles next year as we look
to build upon the team’s success. We remain committed to putting a winning team
on the field and look forward to many more exciting seasons for the Blue Jays.
This press release would have been fine if it were not
for the phrase: “he has chosen not to accept our five-year contract offer.” It’s
bizarre for such a press release, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Alex
Anthopolous is widely regarded as a private person when it comes to details
pertaining to contract negotiations, so this isn’t doing him any favours; that’s for sure. So why did Rogers have to state
that the offer was for five years? The only reason why they felt the public
needed to know is to assure them that Rogers Communications wanted the public
to know that it feels it didn’t do anything wrong. Conversely, they feel the
public ought to know that they did everything they can to appease them. Subtly
implying that they didn’t do anything wrong does not make people more
sympathetic towards them; just like taking away a child’s toy because it’s the “right”
thing to do, does not heal their wounds. So the fire rages on…
On the day of this writing, another article was published
featuring statements
from Edward Rogers, deputy chairman at Rogers Communications. It’s another
attempt to provide clarity in murky chaos; yet, if the general reaction I’m
perceiving from the fan base is any indication, people aren’t buying in. Every
statement made sounds like a cover-up. Fighting this PR fire, doesn’t seem to
be working for Rogers.
Did it have to be this way? Would could Rogers do now and
in the future to prevent something like this from happening again?
As a regular reader of Harvard
Business Review (HBR) I’m convinced that the answer to the first question
is: no. This entire incident was poorly managed, but there are steps that can
be taken by members of the organization to improve future responses to crises. The
first is to realize that simply stating the facts from the perspective of the
business garners no sympathy from anyone outside of it. Instead, the focus
should shift away from trying to control the damage inflicted on the
organization’s image, and onto understanding why people are reacting the way
they are to stop the fire at its source. There’s no sense in focusing on spraying
the fire when there’s a leaking oil valve that’s constantly feeding it. It’s a
waste of time, it’s a waste of resources, and no meaningful progress can be
made towards a resolution.
Rogers needs to understand that the fan base is
distraught because they’re concerned that the elation they felt during the Blue
Jays’ playoff run in 2015 will not continue beyond next year with a new
leadership figure at the helm. Discussing Alex Anthopolous’s five-year contract
with one-year opt-out does not abate this concern whatsoever! They do mention
in their initial press release that they “remain committed to putting a winning
team on the field and look forward to many more exciting seasons for the Blue
Jays.” Unfortunately, such a vague statement leaves little positive to the
imagination. Then, mentioning the five-year contractual term offer takes away
from what could have been a press release with an overall positive future
outlook. It takes a press release that could have been used to ease the
concerns of fans, and turns it into one that serves to protect the organization’s
image. You can’t put out a fire if you’re afraid of being burned.
As I wrap this up, I’d like to share some articles I
enjoyed reading on HBR and that somewhat pertain to this ongoing farce. The
articles listed below are all written by Peter Bregman, as I find his articles
to contain some of the more pragmatic advice that can be applied in life.
This title’s pretty self-explanatory, and I believe that
Rogers could have spent a little more time listening (and by extension,
understanding) the complaints from the fan base before issuing statements about
contractual details that fans could care less about.
Alex Anthopolous did this extremely well in this
situation. Rogers did the opposite, and effects have been disastrous for them
in the last week. Their unwillingness to concede some responsibility for losing
Anthopolous (they were involved in
the negotiations after all), and constantly focusing how Anthopolous was the
one who rejected the offer isn’t helping them. A simple position such as: “we
apologize to the fans for being unable to come to terms with Alex Anthopolous,
but we will work hard with the highly-qualified Mark Shapiro to ensure the Jays
will continue to be successful,” would be a much more positive message than, “Anthopolous
rejected the wonderful offer we gave him, so it’s not our fault.”
This article shows how we can better respond to
negativity. There’s clearly a lot of negativity surrounding the fan base right
now, but there’s also some positivity: there’s hope that the Jays can and will
play in the postseason next year. Understanding what people are positive about
and what people are negative about, and then knowing how to validate those
feelings is important in easing tensions between two people or groups of
people.
This article explains the difference between intentions
and consequences. Rogers probably didn’t intend for any of this to happen, and
that’s what they naturally focus on. “We didn’t mean for Anthopolous to leave.”
The fans don’t care about Rogers’ intentions; they’re focused on the
consequences. The reality is that they made mistakes, and it now hurts fans to
think that they may not see the same level of success for years to come. Fans
don’t need denial from Rogers at this point; fans need Rogers to accept their
responsibility for the consequences and the dissatisfaction the fans have as a
result.
In this article, Peter Bregman asserts that we speak for
three main reasons: (1) to help ourselves, (2) to help others, and (3) to connect
with each other. He believes (as do I) that if what we’re about to say detracts
from one of those three reasons, then we shouldn’t speak at all, (to at least
change the message before speaking). As I really don’t believe that Rogers’
statements genuinely helped others or helped connect one another, perhaps it
stands to reason that they could learn to speak more strategically.
This article discusses an earlier point I made in which I
explained that effectively addressing a problem involves understanding its
causes and addressing the root causes rather than addressing superficialities.
Responding to emotional outbursts involves pretty much the same idea and starts
with validating how people are feeling rather than offering solutions to
problems people didn’t have in the first place. As I previously stated,
providing details of the contractual offer made to Alex Anthopolous did not
help Rogers because that wasn’t really the problem, so it only made people feel
worse.
