In fairness, a person's career should rarely, if ever, be judged solely on the basis of one untoward comment.
But one thoughtless comment can cost a person his or her job.
And it doesn't have to be a "public" comment.
Canadian visitors to this site will know that a leading political aide - in fact, one of the top aides to long-time Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien - some weeks back was reported to have made a comment about U.S. President George Bush in something of a 'non-official' setting. This apparent 'informal' remark was perhaps made thinking that this high-ranking official was in an unofficial and therefore "off-the-record" capacity….that is, that no one who was within earshot of the comment (i.e. reporters) would in fact report that the comment was made.
Regardless of the circumstances, this senior aide was quoted in the media shortly thereafter as referring to President Bush as a "moron".
In the first few days afterward the Prime Minister attempted, as politicians are wont to do, to deflect the mounting scrutiny. He wanted, at all costs -- and as someone with considerable political "equity" within the Canadian landscape -- to protect his trusted and loyal aide as best he could.
Nonetheless the aide ultimately resigned under duress.
Now, this particular individual will no doubt land on their feet, either with another high-level political position or some form of patronage appointment. This will likely come after an appropriate period of absence, similar to when Ministers are forced to resign because of some scandal or allegation. (After a few months they will often re-appear, but with a different portfolio.)
The individual landing on their feet aside, what really transpired here?
Was it fair that a reporter ran with a comment that was not intended to be made public? By all accounts only one reporter did, but other reporters of course followed up on the story.
Fair or not, those in the public arena, be they in business, politics or sports, need to understand that they are always "on". There simply is no such thing as "off the record" -- formally, or informally. (To be clear, the above situation was evidently a circumstance whereby an aide was overheard saying something, not a situation in which the individual "agreed" to a so-called off-the-record conversation.)
If you say something out loud, you must expect that it could end up on the front page of a major newspaper.
But there is more than a practical reason (fear of "getting caught", or losing your job, etc.) for not playing the 'off-the-record' game.
That reason is this: our personal integrity.
We often remind our clients of this very simple reality: it takes years to build your credibility, only seconds to throw it away.
Similarly, the moment we concede to go "off the record" with a reporter, we run a very real personal "integrity" risk; that is, we run the risk of giving that reporter the very distinct impression that there are "two of us". One of which says all the "correct" things when the cameras are rolling and another with views that are quite different when we think no one is recording what we're saying.
My sense is that's a risk that few of us would really want to take.
