The long-awaited testimony from Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford on Chinese electoral interference finally came April 14. And predictably wasn’t worth waiting for since we got the usual Canadian jedi mind trick where we feeble citizens don’t need to see that information. But while it might seem odd that Liberal MPs staged a long filibuster to try to avoid her telling a parliamentary committee nothing, it’s actually an interesting case study in crisis management… in the spirit of Eugene Znosko-Borovsky’s 1949 classic “How Not To Play Chess.”
I’ve been observing Canadian public life for a surprisingly long time now. And while my youthful foray into politics went about as well as you’d expect, I’m still amazed at how people more “pragmatic” than myself prove staggeringly inept at practical things.
Back in the day, or era, I worked briefly for the Reform Party. And watching many people thrash about after a “gaffe” like a Megatherium stuck in La Brea tar (I said it was a while ago) I formulated a rule for dealing with public relations crises that has been widely disregarded since, with disastrous results.
If criticism erupts at you, go somewhere quiet, unplug the devices, and take a whole weekend to ponder honestly and unflinchingly this painful question: “Did I really blunder?” If so, apologize without reservation; be honest about what happened, how, and that you’re to blame; promise to do better; ask forgiveness. If not, stand behind it without reservation; be honest about what happened, how, and that you’re responsible; promise to persist; ask for support.
People tend to avoid this approach for various reasons, some better than others. For instance it’s hard to recognize a genuine crisis because, especially in politics, crises initially look like just one more tempest in a teapot. Indeed, successful politicians, from U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, have a “Don’t just do something, stand there” approach when aides panic. (Like “No drama Obama” in the 2008 presidential campaign.) But political survivors are also good at recognizing when a problem isn’t going away by itself.
Another important reason, on which Richard Nixon wrote a book in 1962, then acknowledged in a later Foreword that he muffed dismally over Watergate, is that following a real crisis you’re tired and irritable and tend to brush off signs of fresh trouble. Since life is a series of crises, and politics an endless series of often imaginary ones, you’re chronically inclined to snarl, make this rubbish go away.
So the key reason to undertake this painful self-examination is that if you don’t take time out to figure out if you bungled, then take the heat or blame firmly and forthrightly, you face two possible paths that converge on disaster.
Because Katie Telford et al. still haven’t taken the time to figure out if they’re sorry, they brush the scandal off glibly then claim they’re taking it seriously, take responsibility then shuck it off, accuse the opposition of partisanship, then fake high-road statespersonship. (The Trudeau Foundation and its backers are doing the same in miniature.)
On April 14, the same prime minister who evasively denied having been briefed said: “The conversations I have with my chief of staff, and with my entire government, and with our defence and security experts, are ongoing. We have been talking about foreign interference for years.” There’s that oily “continue” again.
It’s a very simple lesson in How Not To Manage A Crisis: Trudeau and his senior staff have never gathered in a sealed room with drawn curtains and devices off and said “OK, did we do something really bad?” But their sublime conviction that they’re not that kind of people is precisely why they’re revealing that they are.
