Summary:
- Your organization’s reputation and credibility can be destroyed by a crisis unless you deliver the right message in the right forum. Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech in 2008 beautifully demonstrates this.
Great communications can help you save your business amidst a crisis provided you choose the right medium: you can’t speak like Pericles at Athens on a Tik Tok video. Should you depend on a formal speech or an internet interview for your message? Both? Neither? If you’re a leader navigating a crisis threatening your reputation, use a communications partner so that you deliver your message the right way, just as then Senator Barack Obama did with his “More Perfect Union” speech in 2008,
The Background of the “More Perfect Union” Speech
During the 2008 Democratic primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton, conservatives leaked videos of speeches by Jeremiah Wright- Obama’s pastor and long-time friend. In one, after furiously denouncing US overseas aggression, Wright called the September 11 attacks “America’s chicken’s coming home to roost”. In another speech, he condemned the American government’s institutional racism and said, “God damn America”. The sermons were widely viewed on YouTube.
Although he initially did some TV interviews, Obama had difficulty distancing himself because Wright’s political and personal influence on him were indisputable and had continued well beyond the time of the speeches.
There is a clear parallel between how the media imputed Wright’s opinions to Obama and how a rogue employee’s offensive or damaging words could be imputed to a business.
Obama’s Dilemma
Amidst the ensuing controversy, Obama faced the utter evisceration of his hopeful rhetoric regarding how he would end racial polarization and work to unite the country. At all costs, his rhetoric could not be seen as empty or cynical.
Obama had to free himself of the chains of traditional media. A defensive and staccato back-and-forth with the likes of Sean Hannity would not help.
Analyzing the Speech
With the controversy ballooning, Obama gave the 37 minute “A More Perfect Union” speech, from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, fitting for invoking the hopefulness of the Constitution’s message.
Beyond accepting or rejecting Wright’s views, Obama, in an astonishingly brilliant rhetorical move, situated Wright within the larger black community with its eclectic range of views:
Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety — the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
The inference was crystalline: the black community contained multitudes.
Having discussed the black community, Obama smoothly pivoted to a parallel narrative of anger in the white community. After first establishing his credibility and understanding by invoking the experiences of his white American ancestors, he said:
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience — as far as they’re concerned, no one handed them anything. They built it from scratch.
So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
He also cautioned his audience that while there were legitimate disagreements, would-be dividers of the nation were seizing on race to fracture the country. He resolved the antithesis of black anger and white anger and seriousness and superficiality in a call for all races to recognize their common identity as Americans. As Americans, they should avoid the trap of being gulled into focusing on race by provocateurs, and focus on critical, shared concerns: failing schools, a broken healthcare system, a lack of decent jobs.
Then, having established the need for Americans to transcend racial polarization, he reminded his audience that this had been the central theme of his campaign all along.
Obama’s Strategic Considerations: Moving from a Discussion of Individuals to One of Shared Values and Using the Internet to Speak Directly to His Audience
Obama’s decision to make this lengthy speech was a masterstroke because it allowed him to deal with a complex topic in a complex way, beyond the childish and demagogic discussion of race by the mainstream media. This deeply appealed to citizens who were tired of banalities.
Obama likely gambled that his speech would go viral on the internet. With the internet, viewers could determine the speech’s worth independently of any journalistic opinion. And collective approbation from the internet would exert a bottom-up pressure on the mainstream media. The speech was a sensation and is often credited with saving the Obama 2008 campaign. I doubt that the speech would have rescued his campaign if there had been no internet.
The take away lesson
Obama’s message was successful not just because of its brilliant content but because he bypassed the media and gambled on the internet. If you as a businessman or politician are beset by crisis, you too must carefully tailor your message to the right medium. More than in Obama’s time, there is a bewildering variety of ways for getting out information, from social media to dedicated websites. But you can still capture attention if you pair your content with surgically crafted strategy.
If you’re facing a crisis of credibility or reputation, don’t leave your future to chance—or to AI-written platitudes. My specialty is helping executives design the right message and the right platform, so that you emerge stronger. If your reputation is on the line, let’s talk.
