Professional communicators listen up!

Collar your CEO, drag him or her to the nearest conference room where there is a television receiving a press conference led by General Tommy Franks. Now, chain your exec there until you have both watched and discussed the general’s press conference techniques.

For the moment, forget about Saddam, Iraq, the war. Ignore content. Study technique.

Franks’ abilities with the news media are not flawless, but what he does right so far outweighs the flaws as to render them about as relevant as a debate at the U.N.

Chief among the distinguishing factors of Franks’ style with the news media is the unspoken but ever-present recognition that there are no bad questions…only launching pads for messages from his agenda asserted positively from his perspective.  An example: when the Al Jazeera reporter called Franks a liar and accused him of covering up America’s “real” reason for going to war (all thinly disguished as a question), the general’s response provided the most-used soundbite of the press conference.

Some, of course, will accuse Franks of practicing spin, of avoiding — even evading — reporters’ questions. But if you watch closely and listen — really listen — to his answers, you’ll find that he is responding to the questions, yet doing so almost exclusively on his terms and from his own perspective.

To say that Franks is unflappable is to underrate the level of discipline and mindfulness required to stay on message in such a hostile environment. Which leads us to the second of Franks’ news interview distinguishing factors: The general seems to deftly manage the emotional environment of the press conference, a task that can be difficult even in a one-on-one with a reporter.

Managing the emotional environment of any interview is the often overlooked, yet undeniable key to being responsive while remaining “on message” with reporters.  All news interviews are potentially adversarial. Reporters have much to gain if they can set match to fuse of a spokesperson’s emotional powderkeg. Avoiding that explosion requires a spokesperson to be well tuned in — “sensitive,” if you will — to the physical signs of nature’s fight or flight mechanism. (Ironically, it’s we men — who like to think of our stalwart selves as beyond the influence of emotions — who are most likely to lash out with a verbal right cross when a particularly aggressive reporter scores a hit.) And this is precisely where Franks’ abilities serve him and his organization exceedingly well with the news media.

It’s about sensitivity, yes, but sensitivity combined with personal discipline, something that is obviously a significant component of attaining those four stars. But not all military generals can do it. And few corporate CEOs have yet mastered the level of discipline that allows them to endure the accusatory questions without defaulting to an adrenalin-induced response.

Somewhere in his training, Franks realized that he can’t control the questions and the attitudes of reporters, but he can manage his own emotions and his own words. Somewhere along the line he “got it” that he didn’t have to take the accusations personally…and that getting quoted the way he wanted to be quoted is far more valuable that dropping a verbal daisy cutter on an abusive reporter. The result is that the most blatant accusation masquerading as a legitimate question bounces off him like stones flung at an Abrams tank…and he goes to message.

One slight flaw in Franks’ style is that he sometimes buries his message. Rather than going directly to his soundbite, he will often openly dispute the inherent bias or built-in premise of a question before stating his message. The danger of this approach is that reporters, in their haste to edit, may pick up the disputation rather than the actual message. But even this tendency can be forgiven, given the ongoing crisis atmosphere of Central Command press briefings.

As any good leader will, Franks seems to be imbuing his staff members with his “give me your best shot, I’ll stand here and smile” approach. His staff officers have learned the magic, although they’re obviously still not quite as comfortable wielding it as the old man. Even spokespersons in the enlisted ranks can aim a message with the precision of a GPS-guided JDAM.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the nation’s leading warfighter understands and benefits from the knowledge that he doesn’t have to fight with the news media. For any corporate leader struggling with the skills of news media interaction, there is much to be learned by watching Gen. Tommy Franks.