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Brian Williams Suspended: Layers of a Media Crisis for NBC & Williams

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Brian-DailyBy Gerard Braud —

Leave it to Jon Stewart to once again be the expert voice of reason in modern media. He clearly points out in this crisis that there is the “Brian Williams Anchorman” persona, and as I pointed out previously, the “Brian Williams Storyteller” persona at public events where he appears as a celebrity speaker or guest.

At question is the brand – credibility.

At stake is reputation – damaged.

At the heart of it – two layers. A crisis for Williams the journalist and a crisis for NBC, the corporation.

I think Williams did the right thing to apologize, as mentioned in my previous blog.

NBC, in imposing a six-month suspension without pay for Brian Williams, has created a scenario in which I do think Williams can recover. In other words, I would be surprised if he ever returns to the anchor desk at NBC Nightly News ever again. I would not be surprised to see Williams announce his resignation.

Crisis management requires finesse. A crisis response too little or too late is bad. A crisis response too large makes the crisis worse and creates a series of secondary crises.

Think of crisis management the way you might think of parenting – let the punishment fit the crime. If your child leaves their bike in the driveway behind the car, a proper response is to take away their bike. Taking away every toy they own would be too extreme.

The offenses by Williams appear to have been primarily in celebrity appearances. Hence, the proper vehicle for NBC would have been to prohibit the celebrity Brian Williams from making celebrity appearances. By making such an announcement, NBC could have focused on where the sins were committed, yet opened the door for redemption by putting Williams back on the air after his self-imposed one-week suspension. This announcement should have been combined with my previous suggestion that Williams appear on the Today Show Friday with some of the soldiers who called him out. Such an appearance would have put a punctuation mark on the crisis that defines its end.

NBC, by suspending Williams for six months will remove this story from the headlines quicker. However, the harsh penalty means that if they return Williams in six months, the story will regenerate.

My opinion is that NBC News went too far.

Likely, the only way Williams could return to the anchor desk is if the veterans who called him out for his errors rallied to his side to support him, asking NBC to return him to the air very soon. My crystal ball doesn’t see that happening, although I wish it would.

Je Suis Brian Williams

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Jes suis Brian Williams Gerard BraudBy Gerard Braud

Amid the media stories and lingering crisis surrounding Brian Williams, I will raise these questions.

1. Was the story true to the teller?
2. Would others on that mission recall events differently?
3. When you recall an event and tell that story, is it true to you, while others might recall it differently?

Je suis Brian! When I tell stories, they are true to my recalling, yet others who were there may tell a completely different story. The stories you tell are based on variables, such as the information given to you by others, information heard or overheard by you, and the potential for you to have misunderstood or misinterpreted what you heard. There are distractions. There is background noise. There are many variables.

I don’t know Brian Williams but I wish I did and I wish we could talk on the phone… both because of our shared backgrounds in journalism, and our backgrounds as speakers and storytellers. I also wish I could speak with him because of my background in managing crisis communications, which is needed in this case.

Another variable could be classified as the fishing variable. On the day you catch that two-pound bass, the fish is two pounds. The more the story is told, does a wee bit of embellishing happen as the fish grows to be a six-pound bass?

Embellishment is part of human nature.

And then there is the tribute factor. Williams was GIVING tribute to a soldier in his telling of the story. He was not trying to take credit for anything that, from my perspective, was self-serving.

There are two ironies at play here, which has turned this into a crisis.

Irony #1

Brian Williams sells credibility for a living and now his credibility is being called into question. Not only is his credibility on this story being questioned, but others are raising questions about a variety of past stories. As a former journalist, there is never a day where the world agrees with your telling of any story. A reporter should provide perspective without bias.

Irony #2
The media are obsessed with reporting things from social media. It is social media that has fanned the flames enough to turn this small story into a bigger story. This social media smoldering crisis has become a raging wild fire.

Akin to this are some lessons in crisis communications that each of us can apply in our professional lives and in the organizations where we work.

1) Brian Williams did the right thing to apologize quickly. It takes a big man to say I made a mistake and especially to do it on national television. He did it with class and the appropriate amount of humility and empathy. I’ve seen many media outlets make far more egregious errors and never offer a retraction, correction, or apology for errors and omissions.

2) Support from others who were there and can support your story is important. Some members of the military have come forward to back-up portions of the story told by Williams, but now some are questioning their recollection of their position.

Lance Renolds3) If he has not done so already, Williams should personally call those who called him out to offer an apology and to listen to what they have to say. He must also listen for that which gives a clue as to the motivation of those who called him out. Were they truly offended? Were they angry and dealing with anger issues? Do they hate the media and hate Brian Williams? Is someone trying to gain their 15 minutes of fame? Is someone trying to sell a story or book? It is difficult in a crisis to communicate with your detractors if you don’t truly have insight as to their motives and emotions.

4) If Brian Williams plans to return to the air next Monday, then this Friday he should do an interview on the Today Show. At his side for the interview should be his detractors as well as the veterans who have come forward to support the essence of the story told by Williams.

5) NBC, as the employer, needs to issue a statement. It should neither be a statement that condemns him nor one that places him on a pedestal. The statement should express a degree of neutrality in supporting Williams for his decision to take time off away from the anchor desk so that he doesn’t detract from the news on which he reports.

I am concerned that it appears NBC and Brian Williams may take the same course of action that many corporations do, which is to hope this all blows over. As I tell my corporate clients, “Hope is not a crisis communications strategy.” Action is a strategy and swift action is the best strategy.

It is a common flaw that institutions and people focus on the problem. The focus should be not on the problem, but on the solution to the problem.

Will Williams recover from this?

In the grand scheme of things, the telling of the story reflected no bias. If there are errors and/or omissions, those did not affect the outcome of events nor did they cause physical or financial harm to others.

I don’t know all of the facts and don’t expect that anyone will know them all. I am, however, human and forgiving.

Je suis Brian.

Selecting the Right Spokesperson: Should it be Multiple People?

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DSC_0114Who should be your media spokesperson? In this series of blogs, we have reviewed the argument for the CEO serving as the spokesperson and the PR person serving as the media spokesperson.

Consider option 3: Should a Variety of People Should Serve as Your Media Spokespeople?

A subject matter expert, with proper media training, can be a great spokesperson. In fact, an expert in the subject is often the most credible with the media and the audience.

Numerous people should be media trained as spokespeople, with each ready to go when called upon.

In a crisis, the PR person should speak during the first hour of the crisis, as explained in our previous article. By the end of the second hour of the crisis, a subject matter expert should serve as the spokesperson. If needed, the subject matter expert can remain the spokesperson if the crisis is ongoing. The final news briefing of the day may be the best time to feature the CEO as spokesperson, as explained in our previous article.

Think of your spokesperson selection process the way sports teams operate. You have stars and strong people on the bench, ready to step in as needed.

Media training helps identify your star players and secondary players. Most of all, never let anyone speak without intense training. Media play hardball. Don’t send out an untrained person with little league skills.

Train your CEO. Train your PR expert. Train multiple subject matter experts. The number of experts you train is based on the type of organization you represent. A hospital, for example, could have multiple doctors from multiple fields, as well as one or two nurses. An electric company could train multiple supervisors and line workers, as well as someone who is an energy conservation expert.

The key to effective media training is to help these subject matter experts learn to put their daily jargon aside and learn to speak at a level that a sixth grader could understand. This is especially true for persons with an analytical mind, who have a propensity to focus on tiny, technical details, rather than focusing on the big pictures.

Who will be your media spokesperson?

About the author: Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC (Jared Bro) is a media training and crisis communications plan expert. He has helped organizations on 5 continents. Braud is the author of Don’t Talk to the Media Until… 29 Secrets You Need to Know Before You Open Your Mouth to a Reporter. www.braudcommunications.com

How to Select the Right Spokesperson? Should it be the PR person?

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CrisisDrillGerardBraudWho should be your media spokesperson in a crisis?

In a recent blog, we reviewed Argument #1: The CEO Should Always Be the Spokesperson.

Now we can review Argument #2: When Should the PR Person Be the Spokesperson?

The public relations person is an excellent choice as a spokesperson in the first hour of the crisis when media might be just arriving. But your PR guy or gal doesn’t need to be the spokesperson throughout an entire crisis, nor would I suggest they be your only long term spokesperson.

The best argument for using your public relations expert in the early hours of a crisis is because other members of the crisis management team are likely responding to and managing the crisis. Also, those other experts will rely on the PR team to provide them with the words, talking points, and key messages that need to be communicated.

In most cases, your public relations person has a natural gift for words, both spoken and written. These are usually natural gifts that other members of the crisis management team do not have. Usually the C-Suite is heavy on analytical thinkers who are better with numbers, facts, and figures than with words.

If you weigh your options and look at the variables, the senior member of your public relations team is a perfect first choice, especially when a spokesperson is needed in the first hour of the crisis.

Also, always make sure a PR person is on the crisis management team. Additionally, they should serve as leader of the crisis communications team.

Many companies are slow to communicate in a crisis because:

1) they wait until they know everything before they say anything

2) they are waiting for the CEO or a senior manager to free up long enough to speak

My best recommendation is that you should speak within the first hour of a crisis, even when only a few facts are known. You can tell the media what you know now and add more details later.  A “First Critical Statement” is the document that I use in every crisis communications plan I write. It should be in your crisis communications plan also. To download your free copy of my First Critical Statement, use the coupon code CRISISCOMPLAN when you select the item from my shopping cart.

When few facts are known, it allows the PR person to:

1) Acknowledge the crisis

2) Provide basic facts

3) Say something quotable, while promising more information at a future briefing

Our previous blog about speaking with one voice and relying on the CEO explains my belief that multiple spokespeople can speak on behalf of the company and SHOULD speak with one voice.

In our next blog on this topic, I’ll give you a third option as you decide how best to select the right spokesperson for your company.

By Gerard Braud

Super Bowl Media Interviews: How to Manipulate What a Reporter Writes

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Gerard_Saints_Quote-350x257How often do you do a media interview with the intended goal of having a specific quote used by the media?

It is one of my intended goals for every media spokesperson in every media training class I teach, and here’s why…

Every reporter writes their story around your quote. And guess what? You can manipulate their edit by writing, practicing, and delivering your quote perfectly.

Why leave it to chance? Why throw out lots of marginal quotes for a reporter to select from when you can plan a quote that is guaranteed to be used?

As a public relations expert, what would be your Super Bowl victory?

How about having a front page headline quote?

Here is the inside story on how I scored a front page headline quote when the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl in 2010…

and how you and your spokespeople can learn to do the same thing.

The best Media Training teaches you that effective communications happens when you plan your quotes before your media interview. You must practice your quote to the point that you have internalized the words and you know that you’ve created a truthful, natural sounding sentence. Next, you must flawlessly deliver the quote to the media.

Out of a crowd of one million people, I created a real-life one in a million quote. My headline quote read, “We have endured the American nightmare. It’s our time to live the American dream.”

When the New Orleans Saints went to the Super Bowl, the story for all of the media was that after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the Saints recruited quarterback Drew Brees and coach Sean Payton. Both were moved by the city’s destruction and dedicated themselves to rebuild New Orleans and lead our NFL football team to a Super Bowl victory.

After our team’s victory came the victory parade. That’s where I come in with a plot to be a one-in-a-million quote on the front page of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Logic says a profound quote by Drew Brees or Sean Payton should be the quote of the day. Instead, the best quote appears to have come from, as the paper called it, “parade spectator Gerard Braud.”

Knowing that Hurricane Katrina was the back story and that all news reports were focused on the compare and contrast of destruction versus victory, this meant a great quote would need to illustrate this compare and contrast.

The first version of the quote was, “We’ve suffered the American nightmare. It’s our turn to live the American dream.”

While this is a pretty darn good quote, you must parse your words carefully to make it a great quote.

  • Step 1: The word “suffer” needed to be replaced with the more uplifting word “endure.”
  • Step 2: The word “turn” implies entitlement and should be replaced with word “time,” since such a victory represents a unique moment in time.

With those careful edits, the quote became, “We’ve endured the American nightmare. It’s our time to live the American dream.”

 

 

Did New York City Overreact? A Crisis Communications Case Study

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junoYesterday’s crisis communications blog regarding the winter storm Juno and the #Blizzardof2015 promoted the idea of managing the expectations of those who will be affected by a crisis.

Today, some critics are saying New York City overreacted.

Two observations:

1) The people who complain about “overreacting” are idiots. These would be the same people who would criticize their leaders if things had gotten worse than predicted.

2) One way to proactively address the potential critics during your initial media statement before the storm is to use language like this:

Experts tell us this may be the worse storm we have ever faced. As a city (community) we believe the best course of action is to err on the side of caution, rather than to have anyone get hurt or put in harms way. We are putting safety measures in place based on the best information we are getting from experts at this hour. However, ultimately mother nature is in charge. Sometimes she sends us weather worse than we expected; sometimes it is not as bad as we expected. For that reason, we ask your forgiveness and understanding in advance, if we institute safeguards and ultimately those safeguards are not needed. However, at this time, the best information we have indicates that we should shut down the city…

I’ve noticed several government officials on the news already defending their position, as they should. One governor pointed out how few accidents took place in his state. New York City quickly re-opened this morning after being shut down. Meanwhile, locations in New England are getting slammed, as predicted.

As I’ve learned as a storm chaser in pursuit of hurricanes, the slightest change in tracts means the difference between safety and disaster. If the eye of the storm moves just 10 miles off of the predicted tract, it makes a huge difference.

The bottom line is communicate often and communicate forcefully. Communicate before the event, during the event, and after the event.

By Gerard Braud

The Fog of Decision Paralysis: A Lesson in Crisis Behavior

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Fog_CrashYou should know it is fog season in New Orleans. With fog season comes some significant lessons about human behavior in a crisis.

Dive in with me, if you will, on an incredibly foggy morning. We are crossing a 12 mile long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain from Mandeville, Louisiana to New Orleans. We’re on this 12 mile bridge because the 24-mile long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway bridge is closed because of zero visibility.

The fog is so thick it’s as though our headlights are reflecting off of a bright, white wall.

Our forward visibility is at most three to four feet.

If you were in this situation, what would you do?

What would you foresee happening?

I was actually in that situation on December 31, 1996. I was still asking myself this question and preparing for a possible crisis, when a white, Ford F-150 pickup truck swept by me. He was in the left lane driving far too fast. It took only a flash for him to disappear into the fog.

Within an instant I saw his taillights bounce high into the air. He had rear-ended a slower moving car. The two cars were then faced sideways blocking both lanes of the interstate.

Because I was driving slow… I was able to stop short of making impact. But then I heard the horrendous sounds of screeching brakes behind me.

As I looked in my rear view mirror. I could see headlights closing in on me rapidly.

I steered slightly to the left; the lights veered to my right and smashed into the truck.

I was witnessing the beginning of what would soon be a 70 car pile-up.

There were more screeching brakes… more headlights… more crunching metal.

I continued to steer slightly more to the left and out of the way with each continuing wave of arriving headlines. Each cluster of cars piled into the debris field in front of them.

Soon a green minivan hit the pile and flew in the air tumbling end over end. It landed upside down. Soon a small white pick-up was being crushed like an accordion.

The sounds of crashes seem unending. By now I had inched from the right lane, across the left lane, and onto the shoulder of the bridge. I was making spit-second decisions. I was taking action based on the events around me.

Then there was a brief lull. I reached my left hand slowly across my body and unbuckled my seat belt so I could help rescue those in need. I suspected some are likely dead. The lady in the flipped minivan was first on my mind, followed by the guy in the truck that was squished like an accordion.

But before reaching for the door handle I glanced in the rear view mirror one last time.

And as I looked up into my rear view mirror, all I could see were these letters. They were backwards: G- r- e-y-h-o-oohhhhhhhhh…greyhound-braud

I jerked the car one last time to the left until my rims were grinding against the curb. And by some miracle… the bus slipped by me in slow motion.

And as I followed the bus with my eyes, there in front of it was the first car to have been hit. It was still blocking the highway. The woman driving the car had been frozen in panic. All this time she had done nothing. All the while I was making spit-second decisions and taking action to avoid being hit. Meanwhile she was just sitting in her car, sideways across the left lane of traffic; the left lane now occupied by the Greyhound bus that was sliding past me in slow motion as the bus driver stood on his breaks. And the woman in the car… I watched the horror on her face… she raised both of her hands across her face. I watched as she screamed…

…and the Greyhound plowed into her car door. He windows shattered into a thousand shards of glass. Her car crumpled like a tin can, spinning down the bridge the way a tin can spins when kicked down the street by a child.

Then there was silence.

I exited my car. I crawled out onto the railing of the bridge.

I walked around the back of my car into the piles of crumpled cars and dazed drivers. The space between my car’s right side and the side of the bus was approximately eight inches. I eased between my back bumper and the bus so I could go check on the lady in the first car.

Out of 70 cars, my car was the only one without a scratch. No one had hit me.

It was a miracle. But I also did something the driver hit by the bus did not do: I took action.

In this world… there are some people who react and respond… and there are some who fall into fog of decision paralysis.

The fog of decision paralysis often strikes people in public relations, the men and women in the c-suite, and the leadership positions in the corporate world. When faced with a crisis, they often do nothing to effectively communicate to key audiences, as if they are paralyzed with fear.

Sure, fire crews are authorized to fight their fire without approval. But it often takes 4-8 hours for a news release to be written, approved and released, following the onset of a crisis.

Doing nothing is unacceptable. Doing nothing makes things worse.

In the age of Twitter, you must decide today how you will communicate at the speed of Twitter when a crisis strikes.

If the answer eludes you, call me at 985-624-9976. Your answer awaits.

 

by, Gerard Braud

 

 

Public Relations Help for the Asking

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Gerard Braud PR HelpToday’s public relations epiphany is that too many people in public relations fail to ask for help when they need it. There are many sources for expert help and advice. There are great professional organizations like the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRA), and the Southern Public Relations Association (SPRF).

Many members of these associations are willing to pick up the phone for free to answer a simple question. If most don’t know the answer to your question, they’ll gladly refer you to a colleague who is an expert.

One of my greatest epiphany moments is that public relations folks cause greater problems for themselves by trying to tackle tasks that they are not good at or for which they have no professional passion. In my own career, my passion for dealing with the media and crisis communications lead me to develop a niche’, rather than opening a full service PR agency. If I need other aspects of PR, I call other experts who have PR agencies in New Orleans, New York, Toronto or other cities around the world.

Trying to do what you don’t know how to do is noble. Trying, learning, and achieving great things are commendable. But reaching beyond your capabilities often leads to failure, which then leads to you being further undervalued by your employer, as we discussed yesterday. Sometimes you get fired when the failure is too big. Often the difference between success and failure is simply asking for professional help.

And based on the personality type epiphanies that we discussed two days ago in the blog, you need to realize that most of your employers do not understand your craft or your profession. They think it is easy. Business leaders think you can work miracles. CEOs expect you to create magic on a shoestring budget. And often you do create magic with no budget and it feels great when you do. But when you do, you reinforce the notion of every CFO that you don’t need a bigger budget to do what you do. In reality, often you need to push back and say, “No, we need an outside expert to help us with that because the value of success is important and a potential failure would be more costly.”

Some of you are blessed to be in organizations with a huge PR team with experts in many areas of social media, internal communications, employee engagement, corporate social responsibility, and media relations. Some of you wear too many hats and do it all by yourself, including marketing, branding, advertising, and customer service.

Before you reach too far and fail, consider picking up the phone and reaching out to a professional colleague to ask for advice, help, and mentorship.

 

By Gerard Braud

A PR Epiphany About Your Value As a Public Relations Expert

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Gerard Braud Epiphany PR

Watch today’s video about Gerard’s latest public relations epiphany. http://youtu.be/XpMAsRLXoSY

Did you find your moment of public relations epiphany following yesterday’s blog and BraudCast video? I’d love for you to write me at gerard@braudcommunications.com and tell me what it is.

In addition to yesterday’s epiphany, there are several others I’d like to share with you as we all work together as communications professionals seeking to achieve effective communications in good times and in bad.

I had a huge epiphany when I realized how undervalued communications is in most institutions and companies. You are an expert at what you do, but you are undervalued in your workplace. Yet in your heart, in your head and in your gut you know there is a high value to effective communications.

While many of you can be considered an expert in the broad areas of public relations, my area of expertise is narrowly defined in crisis communications plans and media interview skills. Crisis communications and media interviews are even more undervalued than broader areas of public relations that the vast majority of you practice. And while strides have been made to measure the effectiveness and ROI of public relations to a brand, the reality is it is still undervalued. Many companies don’t want to spend the money to measure something they don’t believe in anyway.

The reason in part goes back to yesterday’s epiphany based on personality types and personality profiles. Many people who hold executive positions in companies come from an analytical and process oriented background, such as accounting or engineering. These personality types want everything quantified. But the reality is that in public relations many of you have seen enough case studies to know how to do what we do, the right way.

Yesterday I introduced you to the King’s Cake, so let’s use this as a metaphor. The cake has a small plastic baby. You hide the baby in the cake. Then people in the office cut slices. If your slice has the doll then you must buy a cake and bring it to the office tomorrow. Based on my experience as a New Orleanian, I can safely predict that someone will get the doll. For me, previous case studies are proof enough.

But an analytical person may undervalue my base assumption and want to have statistics to back up my belief. They may even want to establish probabilities of which color icing is most frequently sliced first, or whether people most frequently cut in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction, or even whether the baby is most frequently hidden under a specific color of icing. And the people who think like that will completely undervalue my assumptions, regardless of my vast experience as a King’s Cake expert.

Everyday you fight a battle against executives who will spend money to promote and market a brand because they expect it to achieve a return on investment for both reputation and revenue. Yet most are in denial about how quickly they can see their brand reputation and revenue destroyed by a crisis or even a poorly worded quote to a reporter.

Today’s revelation is that we are undervalued and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Yet your job is to do your best and keep striving to make your case that PR on a good day and PR on a bad day are great ways to protect the brand’s reputation and revenue.

I value what you do. Keep doing it and do it well.

By Gerard Braud

(To order a King Cake for your office, visit Haydel’s Bakery online.)

 

 

 

What is Your Public Relations & Personal Epiphany?

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Gerard Braud Epiphany

View this and subscribe to this channel http://youtu.be/ZeNyTcoQX3k

I’d like you to stop for a moment as you plan for the New Year and your public relations goals. Reflect if you will, on the year that just ended, as well as the years before.

Today is the Day of Epiphany, and I’d like to challenge you to identify moments of epiphany in your own life and in your own career. I’m even going to share with you some of my own moments of revelation and epiphany in order to help you out. We’ll get to that in just a moment, but you’ll do better if you understand why today’s focus is on moments of epiphany.

photo(2)January 6th is the Feast of the Epiphany (and it is my favorite day of the year). Here in New Orleans we celebrate it in multiple ways. Today is the last day of the Christmas season. It is the 12th day of Christmas that you’ve probably sung about. According to Christian tradition, this is the day the Magi – or three kings – reached the baby Jesus in the manger.

 

King_Gerard_Allen

Gerard Braud as King of the Krewe of Mid-City with his father Allen Braud in 2001.

In New Orleans, this is also known as King’s Day. It begins our Carnival season leading up to Mardi Gras. This is also the day that many of the King’s are chosen for the various Carnival and Mardi Gras parades. In 2001 I was one of those King’s.

So, here is your assignment or challenge… Today is a natural day for you to go beyond setting goals and making New Year resolutions. Your ability to achieve those goals and keep your resolutions is directly tied to who you are and the revelations or moments of epiphanies that you have had.

For example, some of my greatest revelations have come when I have taken various personality profile tests over the past 20 years. These tests can be a window into your DNA and can affect your career and life positively or negatively.

I’m labeled as a Maverick Leader by Sally Hogshead’s How You Fascinate test. Sally will be speaking at the IABC World Conference this year.

I’m labeled as an Activator and Maximizer with high ethics by Marcus Buckingham’s Strength Finders.

Myers & Briggs confirmed I’m an ENTP – An extravert, dreamer, with opinions who values fairness.

True Colors indicated I’m an extravert who values fun more than money.

This means not everyone is going to like me. Highly emotional people and introverts are repulsed by me. My maverick approach to crisis communications plans is to get finished in two days, but analytical people who value a longer process and a series of deadlines may reject my maverick approach.

On the flip side, if you are a fun-loving, extravert who wants to get in, get out and get done with a crisis communications plan, then we are soul-mates, according to the epiphany presented by these tests.

My challenge to you is to dig up your old personality profiles or take a new test and see what moments of epiphany you have. It could help you know who your allies and enemies will be at work. Like-minded people give you permission to proceed in attaining your goals. Like-minded people are your advocates and will help you get the money or resources needed to achieve your goals. Conversely, those not like you may shoot down your great ideas or setup roadblocks to derail your efforts and ideas.

Who you approach for help will determine if your goals are achieved. Even the best ideas, presented to the wrong person at work, can go down in flames, ruining your year.

Happy King’s Day. I hope you rule your entire year.

By Gerard Braud