By John Durante
One of the most famous lines in on-screen Hollywood history comes from the excellent Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke (1967). Character actor Strother Martin mutters to an out-of-line Georgia work gang prisoner, “What we have here is a Faaail-yuh to communicate.” Martin then proceeds to provide some hard-edged “communication” of the physical variety, which leaves few wondering about his point or his level of authenticity.
The spring of 2010 provides us two huge stories worthy of Martin’s observation. Both suffer from a shocking amount of communication that seems inauthentic. Both are high-profile situations in which communication between the players has often been substandard. Worse, some of those trying to “control” the story have been purposely deceptive. All of this has poorly served the general public, which needs accurate, timely and trusted information.
Consider the astonishing hubris of Goldman Sachs management in playing both sides of the real estate ‘fence’ in marketing derivatives securities on the one hand and betting on their failure on the other. Meanwhile, consider the government appointed regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission. While spending substantial work time canvassing the latest online porn, some SEC staffers were apparently unable to communicate with one another about what malfeasance they may have been seeing in their work.
Consider the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the initial estimates offered by British Petroleum about its scope. Again, a slow-footed response from the government overseer (the U.S. Coast Guard) temporarily facilitated BP’s seeming ruse. The company extended its new brand promise of “beyond petroleum” to beyond the facts, as later reports have shown! Meanwhile, the consequences of the disaster may take months to properly estimate.
Both stories represent inauthentic communication at its worst: the scope of deceit and dangerous consequences delivered to a hoodwinked public was not known until too late. To say that protagonists in each story should have been more truthful is axiomatic, quaint and something that the wheels of justice and the mirror on the wall will eventually address.
Classic scenarios such as these require us, the audience, to be vigilant about demanding the story’s “facts.” We must avoid the unwitting passivity that makes for amiable hoodwinking. Intuitively, we understand that petroleum production has inherent ecological dangers. We get that at least part of the Wall Street ecosystem is a well-dressed casino by another name. When events unfold in which facts need to be delivered speedily, and questions answered quickly, our long-term interests and our immediate needs are best served when we demand authenticity from those telling the story — and all those who work in the storytelling food chain.
It’s not that we expect all the answers while a crisis is rapidly evolving. It’s that we expect the facts we get to be delivered in such a way that we can rest assured that honest and engaged leaders are acting in our best interests as the facts (and the crisis) evolve. These two catastrophic stories have sadly demonstrated this principle because so many of the lead characters have demonstrated what NOT to do and what NOT to say rather than hewing to a principle of authenticity that focuses on communication rather than obfuscation. Where is Strother Martin when we need him?
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John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
