Nick Kemp Blog

I have been watching with some interest the media attention surrounding the Sarah Pratt/Gordon Brown news story and have noticed how this behavioural pattern appears in other areas of life. I regularly see clients in my private practice who have been subject to bullying and unfortunately those in positions to wield influence are often totally complicit in creating such situations. Sometimes the person is just not very aware and sometimes they know exactly what they are doing. Certainly those who are professional communicators or in management really should in my opinion know better.

 In these scenarios confidentiality is often breached and parties retort to stating “I was only making a comment” or “I didn’t mean to give that impression”, which is of course after the event and when the damage has already been done. Individuals who make such comments often feel “compelled” to speak out, when they would in my view be far better advised to think before joining in what essentially then becomes “a pack mentality”. In the Pratt case all four of the company’s benefactors resigned, which in my view was the right thing to do.  

In an age of instant communication more than ever people press a button to make a public comment without engaging brain first. What many people don’t fully realize is that once they make comments in the public domain, there is usually a record of such happenings. For example when someone posts on facebook, even if they withdraw a comment the communication still is sent to all those on that particular thread. Similarly sometimes individuals can make ill advised comments on websites not realizing that prior website versions are usually archived and facilities such as http://www.archive.org/web/web.php will reveal previous versions.

Newsgroups of all kinds are similarly full of quite ludicrous comments which in some instances can be quite libelous. Anyone is considering any form of legal action is advised to obtain screen shots of any such comments as sometimes these are conveniently altered or deleted at a later date! Similarly text messages can often be retrieved from phones and often when people make impulsive comments they do so without any real thought only to later regret their actions.  In the Sarah Pratt situation it’s unclear whether she herself will resign. My own view is that anyone who is unable to be discreet and maintain professional confidentiality should not be in such a position of responsibility, whether this is in a political, private or the self help arena.