War and (Green)peace

We can all learn a lot from the recent stupid decision made by Greenpeace here in Australia.

For those who missed it, Greenpeace decided to follow the lead of some international non-profit organisations and automatically raise the monthly contribution amounts of its regular donors (using an opt out letter as permission). And the reaction (stop the presses) people are none-to-pleased.

The obvious lessons are, well, obvious. Don’t take permission to mean permission to do whatever the hell you like. Show respect for the relationships you have and the boundaries of them. And never, ever, no matter how tempting, do something just because it has worked for other people.

But beyond those things, there are much more fundamental issues of “what is permission?”

Greenpeace’s method to send a letter to donors informing them and if they didn’t respond with an “opt-out” (AKA “no I don’t want to do that”), then it was taken as approval to go ahead.

So for me the question that raises is; can a lack of response ever be considered permission? Should it?

Judging by the reactions of the donor base, I would say the answer in this instance is a big old resounding NO.

Seth Godin is one of the grandfathers of permission (marketing) and he recently revisited it in a blog post but has written about it many times. What it all comes down to is that the foundation of my permission to do anything is trust, and once you break that trust then – well you are toast, because I am unlikely ever to give it to you again.

But for me, what is most concerning about the Greenpeace decision is that they didn’t seem to understand that there is a difference between not saying “no” and saying “yes”.

When I say “yes” it is unambiguous. Yes always means yes, whether you are talking sales or marriage proposals. Not saying no, on the other hand, could be any number of things. Maybe I didn’t get the letter because I was travelling. Maybe I read it and then put it aside to deal with later and got busy. Maybe the dog ate it…

So the lessons here are many-fold. But the one that is most important is, never assume that just because your customers, members, clients don’t say no, that they mean yes.

Have you ever taken the lack of a “no” to mean yes? How did it work out for you?

Alignment is Michel’s passion. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia, and Brand Alignment Group in the United States, she helps organisations align who they are, with what they do and say to build more authentic and sustainable brands.

To see more Michel Hogan blogs, click here.