What Can Barbara Streisand Teach You About Running a Business?

Have you ever dealt with a situation so badly that your name became synonymous with getting it wrong? That’s exactly what happened to dear old Barbara back in 2003. Both she (and presumably her management) handled this PR situation so poorly that the so-called Barbara Streisand Effect was born – and it’s something that you should be very aware of as a business. Ready to learn more?

What is the Barbara Streisand Effect?

Nobody likes having their privacy invaded, but for celebrities it’s something that has to be expected at some point. Somebody should probably have told Ms. Streisand that back in 2003, when she began legal proceedings to supress the spread of images taken of her Malibu mansion. The issue actually began innocently enough, when photographer Kenneth Adelman took a few snaps of the cliffs that her home sat upon. The purpose of the images was not in fact to invade Barbara’s privacy, but rather to document coastal erosion. Barbara’s lawyers, however, reacted very badly, demanding that the photos be taken down from the website that shared them. These proceedings captured the attention of the press at large, and these particular photos went from being seen by 6 people to being seen by over 400,000. Oh, and she lost the case too. This outcome spurned the creation of the Barbara Streisand effect, and it’s happened countless times since.

The better part of valour

The lesson any business can learn from this example is that there’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with problems. Ms. Streisand’s lawyers went in guns blazing, and managed to turn something very small into a global news event. The irony of course is that their attempts to supress information actually caused it to spread further than it ever would have had they done nothing at all.  A similar thing happened a few years ago when singer Beyoncé attempted to have an unflattering image ‘removed’ from the internet, with predictable results! If you’re in a management position and you ever come across a scenario that has the potential to blow up in this way, it’s worth considering the Barbara Streisand effect – your knee-jerk reaction may just be the totally wrong course of action.

Dealing with problems head-on

Part of running a successful business is being able to tackle problems with honesty and transparency. If something negative about your company hits the grapevine, whether that be social media or anywhere else, it’s never a good idea to try and cover things up. Instead, bite the bullet and be honest about it – or simply let it go and do nothing at all. By doing so – and it may seem counter-intuitive – you could end up with a much smaller scale problem than you would if you try to save face. Customers these days respect honesty, and in a world where rumours can hit Facebook and Twitter feeds within minutes, attempting to suppress information is a fool’s errand indeed.

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