{"id":483,"date":"2016-11-29T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/info.maccabee.com\/blog\/blog\/pr-war-stories-preparing-your-ceo-to-testify-before-congress\/"},"modified":"2024-12-18T15:57:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T15:57:22","slug":"pr-war-stories-preparing-your-ceo-to-testify-before-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/info.maccabee.com\/blog\/pr-war-stories-preparing-your-ceo-to-testify-before-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"PR War Stories: Preparing Your CEO to Testify Before Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which would your CEO rather do: testify before hostile members of Congress under oath or be hung by their toes over a blazing Hibachi grill?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Yes, testifying before Congress has never been a CEO\u2019s favorite diversion. Most recently, we witnessed the ordeal endured by Heather Bresch, CEO of EpiPen manufacturer Mylan (pictured at left), when she testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in an attempt to explain the 500 percent price increase for its life-saving medical device.<\/p>\n

Or who can forget the gaunt, sweating and desperately obfuscating tobacco and oil company executives who have faced Congressional inquisitions? Exhibit A: British Petroleum\u2019s former CEO Tony \u201cI\u2019d Like My Life Back\u201d Hayward, who was relentlessly grilled on Capital Hill after the lethal Deepwater Horizon explosion led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

So how can you as a corporate communications or PR professional prepare your CEO for testimony before Congress, where they are under oath, on-camera and facing politicians with subpoena power? You can start by learning the initial missteps \u2013 and ultimate success – of yours truly, when I testified against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Congress during my years as an investigative journalist (below right).
\n\"Paul_Congress_Testimony.png\"<\/p>\n

PR Lessons From My Experience Testifying Before Congress<\/h3>\n

While researching the FBI\u2019s battle against 1930s gangsters for my crime history book, \u201cJohn Dillinger
\nSlept Here,\u201d I filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests with the FBI to obtain copies of long-secret files on bankrobbers John Dillinger, Alvin \u201cCreepy\u201d Karpis and \u201cBabyface\u201d Nelson, along with local hoodlums like Minneapolis godfather Isadore \u201cKid Cann\u201d Blumenfeld.<\/p>\n

Being a publicist at heart, I also persuaded the media to publicize the FBI\u2019s reluctance to crack open their crime files, which led to a surprise phone call from a staff member for Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy. Would I be willing to testify about the FBI\u2019s foot-dragging before the Subcommittee on Technology and the Law in Washington D.C.? Oh, yes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

With visions in my head of the 1954 drama between U.S. Army counsel Joseph Welch and U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings (\u201cAt long last, have you left no sense of human decency, sir?\u201d Welch demanded of Sen. McCarthy, thus destroying the anti-Communist crusader\u2019s reputation), I feverishly prepared dramatic remarks that savagely criticized the Bureau\u2019s refusal to both release and agree to a waiver of fees for FBI files on Minnesota organized crime figures.<\/p>\n

My script combined Emile Zola\u2019s fury over France\u2019s notorious Dreyfus Affair (\u201cJ\u2019Accuse!\u201d) with the shoe-pounding rage of Jack Nicholson in the film, \u201cA Few Good Men\u201d (I channeled his climactic outburst, \u201cYou can\u2019t handle the truth!\u201d). My words seethed with self-righteousness, as if I single-handedly were throwing myself against the walls of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. I half expected that my testimony would climax with the entire gallery exploding into applause, as they did for Al
\nPacino\u2019s character at the finale of the movie, \u201cScent of a Woman.\u201d I sent an advance copy to Sen. Leahy\u2019s team in Washington.<\/p>\n

Within hours of receiving that draft testimony, Sen. Leahy\u2019s staffer phoned me and \u2013 how shall I say it \u2013 expressed dismay at the tone of my proposed remarks. More than two decades later, my handwritten notes from that phone call still vibrate with their concern. My testimony\u2019s word choices were too loaded, and my tone too flip for a Congressional hearing, he warned. The senator\u2019s staff urged me to be less judgmental about the FBI in my testimony \u2013 that was the senators\u2019 role, not mine. Instead, they recommended that I lay out the facts with calm and dispassion. Be respectful\u00a0\u2013 even solemn \u2013 they advised, when addressing the senators . . . you are in their house, on their turf. Never forget that this is a public<\/em> hearing \u2013 don\u2019t appear to challenge these senators in front of TV cameras.<\/p>\n

A Coda<\/strong>: I took the advice of Sen. Leahy\u2019s staff and days later, delivered my revised testimony in a hearing room inside the Dirksen Senate Office Building with an air of deep and somber gravity. The hearing went well and even my likeliest adversary \u2013 a staunch defender of the FBI, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch\u00a0\u2013 treated me graciously in return.<\/p>\n

Public Relations Lessons<\/h3>\n

So what can you as a corporate communications professional learn from my naivete\u2019 as a young journalist facing Congress?<\/p>\n