November 10, 2016 Heather James

The Polls Were Wrong! Why We Should Stop Speculating

TVG Staff

No matter which side of the aisle you support or who you voted for on Tuesday, chances are that you along with the rest of the country woke up yesterday surprised, stunned or happy with the Presidential election results.

Democrat Hillary Clinton was “leading” by 3.5 points in the polls Tuesday morning, but Republican Donald Trump won the election, in what the media has called perhaps one of the most stunning upsets in American political history.

To say the media (not to mention the Democratic party) was dazed on Wednesday morning is an understatement. They had prepared for the first woman President, but the results pivoted in a different direction and paved Donald Trump’s road to Pennsylvania Avenue.

There are two fundamental takeaways here for strategic communications: Don’t speculate, and always have your crisis communications plan prepared in advance. Throughout history, speculation has proven to be a problem in predicting elections. The 1948 “Dewey Defeats Truman” newspaper headline might be the best-known example.

But polls and predictions are just that: predictions. Or, to put it another way, speculation. They’re the stock-in-trade of the media, because they’re fuel for the ravenous appetite of the media’s audience. (Or at least they were. We’ll see what happens going forward.)

At TVG, we caution all of our clients to deal only in fact. Speculation has no place in strategic communications. If you speculate, you have to remember what you said, when and why. If you deal only with the facts, you have a lot less to remember.

Was there a flaw in the polling prior to the election, or were people more guarded about stating their ballot choices this year? The answer to that would cause us to speculate! All we are suggesting is you look at these results and learn from them.

We also see a crisis communications component to all of this. We caution our clients to be prepared by having a crisis plan and making sure that plan looks at multiple variables and outcomes. It should cover both positives and negatives, and it shouldn’t overlook worst-case scenarios. By planning for the worst and hoping for the best, you’ll save time, money and frustration in the long run. The frustration component is often overlooked in crisis communications, but it can be one of the most important aspects.

How much time have you put into a potential crisis for your business, agency or organization? At TVG, we like to say that it’s not if a crisis will happen, but when. And we also like to say that you can either spend 10 percent of your time developing a crisis communications plan in advance, or you can spend 90 percent of your time (at least) reacting to it.

Look no further than the 2016 election cycle, take a step back and assess the current state of your strategic communications planning. Do you have overall messaging? Are your spokespersons trained to deal only in facts?

And are you ready for a “stunning” event? Now is the time to save time, money and frustration. Review your crisis plan each year – and if you don’t have one, start on one now.

Need help getting your crisis plan together? Contact us at www.vandivergroup.com

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