“I’d probably do it again.”
Lance Armstrong’s unabashed lying, and subsequent non-apology, marked his story as one of the biggest falls from grace in sports history. After a series of disastrous media appearances following the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s damning report on his abuse of performance enhancing drugs and other illegal practices meant to boost racing ability while avoiding detection he’s been largely quiet, and judging from a BBC interview published this week he really should stay that way.
Asked by reporter Dan Roan, “When it comes to the doping, would you do it again?”, Armstrong dropped a quote that probably left his PR people having an absolute fit just off camera – “If I was racing in 2015, no, I wouldn’t do it again because I don’t think you have to. If you take me back to 1995, when it (doping) was completely and totally pervasive, I’d probably do it again.”
I’d probably do it again. Immediately when we heard this quote, we thought of a post from the blog of “Mr. Media Training” Brad Phillips, who had posed the question “Is Lance Armstrong a Sociopath?” after his Oprah appearance in 2013, and we can again see the same personality at work here. Even after what was almost undoubtedly extensive coaching, after watching the fallout from his actions play out, Armstrong completely fails to show any real remorse or understanding that what he did was wrong.
From a crisis management standpoint he’s beyond all help, and as long as he continues to utterly fail to accept that showing sincere regret for what he’s done is the first step to repairing his reputation even the slightest bit that will continue to be the case.
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]
– See more at: http://managementhelp.org/blogs/crisis-management/2015/01/15/the-reputation-feedback-loop/#sthash.4txAEWn1.dpuf
Jonathan L. Bernstein, founder and Chairman of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of crisis management – crisis response, vulnerability assessment, planning, training and simulations.
Erik Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management. Erik started with BCM in 2009 as a writer and subsequently became social media manager for the consultancy itself as well as for a number of BCM clients before moving to the president position.