Community Dissent: How Wise Man Say Would Have Handled The HRD

It’s probably fair to say to that somebody had a pretty bad day last Friday. That somebody almost certainly worked in the Public Relations department of the Chartered Institute of Personal Development and was manning that organisations twitterfeed when this happened:

A tweet by well known industry blogger and community insider – the HRD – was the first shot in what became a viral campaign against the CIPD’s recently launched corporate makeover, ultimately resulting a temporary hijack of annual conference conversation, publication in the leading industry magazine – Personnel Today – and a PR backlash that ultimately required the intervention of CIPD top brass.

On the surface of it, the problem was a somewhat clumsy, dad-on-the-dancefloor type attempt to rebrand corporate image (judge for yourself here). However, the real problem was how the CIPD handled community dissent. They made some obvious errors, of which here are the five most significant

1. Launching a PR Campaign without being prepared to listen

It was pretty clear that the CIPD was completely caught off guard by the negative feedback coming back at them almost immediately after launching their initiative. They produced a makeover, launched it at their membership and, more or less, waited for them to passively consume it. It was a classic case of deploying the one way broadcast paradigm of PR, into a world that has rapidly moved to the conversational age. The CIPD didn’t listen because it wasn’t equipped to do so, having the tools, but not the understanding. Of course this lack of engagement stimulated further antagonism, stoking a hostility that eventually became a full scale twitterverse riot

2. Underestimating the influence of the dissenting voice

Whilst the social web is a great equaliser, it is the case that we do not all have equal power or influence to create real world impact. PR needs to be aware of the blogosphere, whose members can often wield an influence that is disproportionate to their ‘real’ world standing. This is due in part to their understanding of the social web, their degree of connectedness with other industry players and their know-how on leveraging the network to spread their message. You may not know who the HRD is (who does, answers on a postcard) but you could figure out how likely his message could spread by looking at his blog (How many comments has the article generated? Who is commenting? Are they also influencers?), or his twitterfeed (how many followers does he have? Who are those followers? Does he tend to generate RT’s & Mentions?). The initial silence of the CIPD could be understandable – even worthy of endorsement, if it was strategy – but when you have an influential antagonist, allied to other industry influencers actively agitating for insurrection, it should have been clear that the silent treatment was the wrong option.

3. Allowing the dissenters to dominate the conversation

It didn’t help that the CIPD left itself wide open to attack. The PR makeover was designed to coincide with the CIPD annual conference, and the corporate twitterfeed was prominent on the CIPD homepage. The feed was set, as I recall, to display tweets for previous 10 hours. This was like lowering the drawbridge of the castle when you are under siege. Of course, the conference hashtag was quickly hijacked by a growing army of dissidents, the critique of the PR campaign brought to an audience who might have otherwise missed it, with the ‘debate’ took the form of an endless stream of twitter graffiti in the middle of the CIPD homepage. It took our put-upon PR exec hours before a reconfiguration of the stream settings, and a mobilisation of twitter DOS response.

4. Attempting discipline when you have no leverage

The logic of the refrain, ‘don’t pour fuel onto the fire’, is a pretty straightforward. If you are going to take action, make sure what you are about to do does not make things worse. When you have a hostile dissident, animated at not being heard, becoming drunk with the evidence of his power to mobilise the mob, you do not is this:

It should be obvious that an appeal to the dissenters sense of due process was going to fail. In any case, without leverage this tactic will always fail in hostile negotiations. Worse, it provides further material which the HRD promptly repurposed into propoganda, which was used to further rally the mob and drive another flare up of anger from the twittersphere.

5. Never once taking the initiative

If you plotted a timeline of the key moments of the HRD vs CIPD spat, a familar pattern would emerge – dissident action vs incumbent reaction. In fact, CIPD did not act until it went, perhaps predictably, to traditional press, marshalling a host of HR professionals to defend the CIPD’s makeover and launching something of a counterattack against the dissidents. By then, of course, it was much too late – the damage had already been done. By continually conceding the initative, the CIPD gave encouragement to its opponents, leading to further opportunities to be attacked before finally stifling debate through technical gerrymandering.

Would Wise Man Say have done any better? I think so. Here’s how I would have dealt with the HRD & his fellow dissidents

1. Acknowledge the feedback.

The emotional energy that powers dissent often comes from a feeling not being heard. The simple act of acknowledging dissent – and agreeing with the right of the member to assert his opinion – can take heat out of the argument and drain some of that energy at its source. You won’t win the argument at that stage, but you give yourself a chance of dealing with someone who is slightly less angry than he was before.

2. Engage

Why not? If you have allowed the release of any product, image or idea, you must be prepared to defend it or you shouldn’t have let it get out of the gate in the first place. You may lose the argument, but you win respect by being prepared to engage. And in any case, the issue in question was a matter of opinion – I’m sure there are plenty who loved the makeover – so there was always an easy retreat to the safe ground of ‘I’ve heard you, you’re entitled to your opinion and I disagree’. This gives you the opportunity of ending the debate at the juncture of personal opinion, rather than allow it to escalate out of control

3. Include & Enrol

You can often eliminate hostility by not treating it as such. OK, so this dissident’s obviously got something to say – rather than seek to drown him in silence, why not make use his passion and influence? After acknowledging his complaint, and debating the merits of the campaign, invite him to contribute the next time corporate branding is on the agenda. This is the Roman bargain of buying off the barbarians by offering land in exchange for peace. It may not be something you want to do, but the exchange secures your project and gives your PR campaign a chance to do it’s job.

4. Wrong foot the enemy and take him out on your terrain.

So you’re dealing with a guy who’s very much at home on the blogosphere and on twitter? Fine, take him out of his comfort zone and invite him to come into CIPD HQ and interview with the Head of Communications who commissioned the offending PR makeover in the first place. You also suggest that you are going to record the interview, YouTube it and tweet the link to the CIPD membership and all the protagonists who have taken such an interest in the campaign. The HRD writes as anonymous blogger, so bring him in and call his bluff. Let him know that you are prepared to have a reasonable debate, but also that this will come at price – it’s trousers down time pal, are you man enough? Whether the dissident accepts or not, the CIPD would have won kudos from the community by listening, engaging & proposing solutions, strengthening it’s position by putting the dissident onto the defensive and undoubtedly winning approval from the twitterverse by offering what would have been a must-see showdown. As a bonus, we might have also got to know who the hell the HRD is; my guess is though, that he would’ve declined the offer, suffered a loss of credibility as a consequence and piped right down. Right, HRD?

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