Briefing: Wednesday, 01 March 2017

Inside the Executive Suite (Tips, Tricks, and Techniques used by the Nation’s top Executives… to get things done.)

Who Would Have Thought the Academy Awards Would Teach Business Lessons?

The big news this week in major mistakes and potentially serious brand disasters is the flubbed announcement of the Best Picture Oscar. A managing partner for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP handed the wrong envelope to actor for the final award Sunday evening. On stage with the envelope for Best Actress, Beatty and fumbled their way through, announcing as the best picture when in fact, Moonlight garnered the award.

Two minutes elapsed between the mistake and its being rectified. In the interim, two La La Land producers delivered acceptance speeches before the third revealed the mistake. He called the Moonlight producers and actors to the stage to accept their award.

PwC places the blame on Brian Cullinan, an LA-based PwC managing partner, for mishandling the envelopes. News stories point to Cullinan tweeting pictures backstage (despite having been told not to), including one of just moments before the incident.

Business Lessons Galore We wouldn’t typically feature an entertainment story. A top accounting firm’s senior executive missing the implications of taking an eye off the ball in a high-stakes, highly-visible situation, however, suggests value in reviewing this story’s business lessons. None of us may ever be backstage at the Academy Awards. Yet, we all face situations where the stakes and visibility are high both personally and for the brands we represent.

Personal Leadership Lesson: You have to know whose show it is. We’ve seen many executives who, based on their titles, experience levels, or inflated senses of self-worth, believe they are above the rules in situations where they clearly are not in charge. It’s easy to mistake access to important and influential people within a work setting as a sign that normal business practices do not apply. We have witnessed executives ill-advisedly pushing the boundaries around political figures, sports icons, and celebrities whose handlers and contracts clearly restrict the rules for interaction.

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Brian Cullinan, despite the Academy’s refusal of his request to post backstage pictures on Twitter, shared multiple photos during the show. This executive missed the fact that this was not his show. That may explain why he seemed to lose focus before the last award, even though those in charge of the show hadn’t drawn it to a close.

Take-away: Executives sometimes need to fit into a bigger picture where their day job distinctions don’t mean as much as they typically expect. In these situations, understand where you fit, know who is calling the shots, and don’t let your guard down on carrying out solid business practices.

Service Recovery Lesson: Plan for what your brand will do when things go awry. News accounts suggest PwC and the Academy have procedures to make sure presenters announce the correct winners. The two PwC representatives memorize the list of winners so they are alert to any incorrect announcements. They are positioned on opposite sides of the stage with a full set of envelopes. This should ensure that, no matter where the presenter enters, the correct envelope is available. Despite the procedures, Cullinan handed Beatty the wrong envelope. The error was immediately clear, but it took several minutes to alert presenters onstage.

The initial service recovery fell to someone outside the system: Moonlight producer Jordan Horowitz. He authoritatively informed everyone that there was a mistake. He confirmed that he was serious and announced he’d be honored to present the Oscar to Moonlight .

Take-away: Untested service recovery procedures are only as good as the designers’ collective ability to imagine what happens when things go wrong. It’s vital to road test what happens when seemingly strong procedures fail, and you’re left to depend on others stepping in to make things work.

Crisis Communication Lesson: Get in front of problems with honesty and integrity. PwC allowed a gap between the miscue and its statement the next day. In its official release and interviews on Monday, PwC acknowledged the error as its responsibility and held itself accountable. That is solid crisis communication behavior: addressing the relevant issue with clarity, transparency, and authenticity. Unfortunately, its managing partner took a different approach. He deleted the tweet with the Emma Stone picture and all the other photo tweets from the evening.

Take-away: It’s one thing for a brand to have a strong crisis communication strategy ready for those times no one expects. Beyond official communicators carrying out the plan, though, all the relevant (and irrelevant, for that matter) brand representatives have to also be on strategy in their personal actions.

Brand Reputation Lesson: Brands build reputations over years and lose them instantly. Creating a strong, lasting brand takes years of consistent performance. It’s about acting and reacting in a predictable manner that satisfies customer expectations. In this instance, PwC has compiled and managed Academy Award voting for more than eighty years. PwC leverages the

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Armada Executive Intelligence Brief relationship with the Academy in marketing messages, promoting the exclusivity and trust key to its highly confidential assignment. To the extent that it derives brand value from the trust associated with the Academy Awards, PwC depends on impeccable performance from its people. Its people weren’t impeccable Sunday night. That leads to the Academy’s noncommittal response on Monday regarding its relationship with PwC going forward.

Take-away: Brand representatives are always “on.” Even when the stakes are much lower than the Oscars, brand representatives are one miscue or inopportune remark away from undoing years of brand building.

Owning a Challenging Situation Answering questions later about stepping up to address the situation, Jordan Horowitz commented, “I’m a producer. I gather things together, and I change directions, and I march things forward.” For C-suite executives, that’s the most important take-away from this business-lesson rich story. We all have to be leaders, even in the most awkward and convoluted situations. In light of everything that happened, this is a good week to ask yourself: Am I and my brand ready when our “it can’t ever happen” moment happens?

Warm regards,

Keith [email protected]

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