Last autumn, Playmaker CEO Alan Kelly spoke at the prestigious Wharton School of Business' Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania.  He elaborated on his presentation during a post-conference interview, where he discussed the need for standards and how they can accelerate innovation through increased understanding and decreased subjectivity.

You can watch the interview here.

For its readers' amusement, The Atlantic recently published a table of rejected elements -- a play on the table of chemical elements, where the likes of Asparagus, Grenadine, Asinine, Linoleum and other socially out-dated whims were tossed.

We can relate.  During the penning of The Elements of Influence, approximately a dozen stratagems were considered for The Standard Table of Influence Strategies but ultimately rejected:

Smoke Out –To force a player to engage in play action – i.e., to smoke out someone – was observed to be a harmonic of two or more existing plays.  it was also seen to be a function of repetition and frequency, and thus housed in the Factors at Play resource.

Bridge – To alter the context or criteria of a discussion – i.e., to bridge – was judged to be a related term of the Recast or a combination of the Bear Hug + Recast harmonic.

Flop – As a means of strategic deception, the Flop was observed to be a synonym of the Red Herring.  It might be also be explained as a Pass + Red Herring harmonic.

Fan – To call attention to or to further incite interest around an idea or event in a marketplace – i.e., to fan the flames – was thought to be a function of volume, repetition or frequency, and thus housed in the Standard Factors of Influence resource.

Peck – The concept that a player or idea might be submitted to benign yet repeated inspection or provocation – i.e., to be pecked to death by ducks – was observed to be a function of repetition and frequency and thus housed in the Factors at Play resource.

Flood – To bombard a marketplace with information – i.e., to flood the market – was seen to be a harmonic of two or more existing plays and a function of repitition and frequency.  It is thus housed in the Factors at Play resource.

Gangplank – The idea that a player might be forced to make a move  – i.e., to walk the gangplank – was observed to be a harmonic of numerous existing plays.

Many thanks:  To Peter Buchanan, of New Plan, for the find.

Photo credit:  The Atlantic

Posted by:  Alan Kelly

A special guest blog by Alan Smith, a corporate communications consultant based in Sydney, Australia.

Following Australian Federal politics is hard enough at the best of times. And I’m not a political commentator.

But I am a communications and public relations consultant. How individuals, politicians and organizations phrase, own and drive debates to create a following, to create what Seth Godin calls tribes, does interest me.

And right now in Australia, we have a situation absolutely crying out for the structure and analytical rigour of the Playmaker’s Standard.

It's about nothing less than the leadership of the governing Labor Party, and the future government of Australia.

Yesterday, at about 5:30 pm Sydney time, which was about 1:30 am Washington, D.C. time, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd resigned as Foreign Minister, and announced his intention to return to Australia to seek a leadership ballot.

This morning, Julia Gillard, who is Prime Minister, announced a leadership ballot (what we call a ‘spill’) for this coming Monday morning.

Julia Gillard is also the person who overthrew Mr Rudd in 2010 to claim the leadership of the Australian Labor Party to become Australia’s first female Prime Minister (PM).

So: what was said, by whom, and how? How many Call Outs were there? Who Baited whom?

This short blog post presents my interpretation of what’s happened in the last 24 hours.

I’m an interested observer, sitting on the sidelines. I don’t know any of the campaign managers (many of whom, I suspect, have been caught out in any case). But I hope this analysis helps paint a picture of what’s going on Down Under.

First, some background.

Kevin Rudd was elected leader of the Federal Labor party, which was at the time in opposition, in December 2006. He went on to dislodge incumbent conservative PM John Howard in the Federal election of 2007, ending Howard’s 11-year term in government, and incidentally ending Howard’s own political career - he lost his own Sydney seat.

Rudd and Labor had a clear mandate on a number of policies, some of which were always going to be tricky and difficult, such as an carbon missions trading scheme.

The emergence of the global financial crisis at the end of 2008 didn’t help matters, but Australia weathered that particular storm well, due in part to the Rudd government, in part to the surplus inherited from the Howard government, and to Australia’s fortune as one the world’s primary sources of minerals.

But Rudd’s personal style, probably best summarized as ‘driven’, started to detract from early successes throughout 2009 and 2010. Eventually, in June 2010, Julia Gillard, then deputy PM, informed Mr Rudd that she planned to call a leadership spill. Recognizing that he didn’t have the numbers to thwart the challenge, he declined to compete and she was
appointed leader and Prime Minister.

She led Labor to the polls in August 2010 and formed a government in her own right, but only with the support of, and concessions to, four independent MPs who are not aligned with either Labor, the Greens, or the Liberal-National Coalition (Australia’s conservative party).

Against this backdrop of intrigue, backbiting, lingering resentment and worldwide economic turmoil, Julia Gillard’s minority government has introduced difficult legislation that has passed into law despite being unpopular in the short term.

Which brings us to yesterday. At 5:30 pm Sydney time, Rudd ran a combination Challenge and Crazy Ivan, an all-or-nothing gambit in which he resigned as Foreign Minister while overseas on official business (in the United States), issued a Call Out, declaring his reasons as being a lack of support from PM Gillard, and issuing a second Challenge calling for a leadership spill.

I say this had Crazy Ivan elements because he had to fly back to Australia and had yet to organize a rescheduled flight. He was bringing his position and his concerns, all bound up in his own perspective, to a head and going early. Neither did he brief Gillard beforehand. She was caught off-guard.

There was no going back, for either of them.

In that this was 1:30 am on the morning of Wednesday 22 February in the US, there was little else that could be done by Rudd’s team. He had caught the Australian early-evening news cycle, but then had to sign off. This allowed Surrogates supporting Gillard to run plays through Wednesday evening Australian time, even as we the public caught up with events.

Various ministers acted as Proxies for Gillard (and Rudd) running plays that sought to Filter the back-story through their respective prisms, Call Out concerns about the other side, and issue Fiats about their own futures.

Track forward to this morning. Gillard had Leaked that she would likely announce today that she would call a leadership spill on Monday next, and a media conference was scheduled for 9:30am.

Rudd Preempted with another of his own at 9am Sydney time, a Bait and Challenge to Gillard by being 30 minutes ahead of her.

He started with Filter and Deflect plays, saying he was shocked at comments made overnight his time by detractors here in Australia.

He denounced the politics of division within the Labor Party with a Label and a Call Out in which he involed the public’s dissatisfaction.

He followed with a Peacock, reminding the audience of his own achievements while PM, couched very much in personal terms rather than collaborative language. There was little hint of the cabinet in these pronouncements.

Switching between Filters and Preemptive plays, he talked up a mini-manifesto for future policies, while decrying policies that he had introduced and which had been “abandoned” (his words) by the Gillard administration.

This was, unsurprisingly, a speech designed to present his credentials as a leader, but also to position himself very much as the innocent injured party in the context of his ousting nearly two years ago.

Leading up to his closure and questions, he ran an overarching Jam, casting doubts on Gillard’s achievements, a Fiat in which he stated that the Labor Party should not be led by what he called faceless men (more on this later, from Gillard), and used a Recast to downplay whether he not he thought he had the numbers to win.

The whole package could be described as being tied up with a Draft play seeking to harness the energy and emotion and momentum of the moment, all started the previous night with his preemptive Challenge, in the full knowledge that he was about to be out of contact for about 24 hours.

What’s fascinating is that the Crazy Ivan thread continues to lurk: he could have said all this on the tarmac at Sydney airport, still beating Julia Gillard’s axe, but giving his supporters and staffers time to prepare and to act as Proxies for him. Instead, he’s again gone for broke, leaving the field open to Gillard over the next 24 hours or so.

With Rudd’s departure from his Washington hotel for the airport, we waited for Julia Gillard to leave hers for her own press conference in Adelaide, in South Australia. Time lapsed, and we were not sure whether she was running a Pause or simply stuck in the traffic!

In the interim, Proxies ran their own plays through the media, and no doubt on the phones. Minister Simon Crean ran a Preempt is response to a question about whether he would serve under Rudd, by saying that Rudd simply would not win.

Julia Gillard’s media conference was mostly devoid of the expected Baits, but it had a number of Call Outs and its own Filters, reminding Australians (and the media) of the achievements of her administration as she saw them.

She started running Fiats, declaring the need to clear the air, confirm the leadership spill (on her terms, not Rudd’s), and running one significant Bait and Challenge: she declared that should she not win the ballot (despite her expectations that she will win) she will return to the back benches with no further leadership aspirations, and called on Kevin Rudd to make the same commitment.

In that he’s on an aeroplane, we have yet to hear Rudd’s response - cue a Screen, I suspect.

She had her own Peacock moments in which she talked about her successes as Prime Minister, but they seemed less overt than Rudd’s, and running Peacocks is less Gillard’s style.

What is more her style are Lanterns, appeals to listener to forgive her mistakes, a notable point of difference from Rudd’s own messages and style.

She also ran a Bear Hug, which I thought was risky, in which she embraced Rudd’s earlier commitment to attack the real opposition, Tony Abbott (who has almost been forgotten in this internal debate).

Gillard ran Deflects about her own leadership behaviour in the 2010 coup over Rudd, not least that she rescued the party from dysfunctional division, and ran a Call Out about Rudd’s own style. And she tied this section off with a neat Challenge that Rudd knew he didn’t have the numbers in 2010 to stay on as PM.

To close, she issued a final Challenge, asking rhetorically, who is most fit to lead Australia?

In the short term (i.e. until the next Federal election) we find out on Monday.

So what of the communications and influencing styles of these two embittered, embattled, experienced politicians?

Rudd’s is perhaps ultimately characterized by Peacock plays that seek to align him directly with the Australian public.

Gillard’s rests more on Filters to present her case, Lanterns to recognize the weaknesses others see in her, and Surrogates to do the anti-personnel work.

Rudd seeks to influence the Australian voters. Gillard seeks to influence the Labor Party caucus.

If you’re interested in watching this unfold from afar, turn to abc.com.au, theaustralian.com.au, or smh.com.au, to name just three media outlets. Follow the protagonists at @JuliaGillard and @KRuddMP

Photo Credit: The Sunday Telegraph

Alan Smith is a corporate communications consultant based in Sydney Australia. He first met Alan Kelly in 1998, and has followed the genesis and refinement of the Playmaker’s Standard from Larry Ellison’s first pronouncements on the PC, in Paris, to today.  A copy of The Elements of Influence is never far from his elbow.