A tough question I have put to various candidates for jobs involving protocol instinct and practice:

You are supervising the seating of VIPs at the theatre for a big British theatre night. As guests arrive you are told that two top VIPs allocated to the best central front-row seats are now not going to attend. A moment for a decision! Do you:

 

(a)   Offer these best seats to the next most senior VIPs seated along the front row or in the second row

(b)   Try to find the Ambassador to see what should be done

(c)   Try to find the Deputy Head of Mission to see what should be done

(d)   Ask others in the front row to move along so that there is no awkward ‘gap’ in the front row

(e)   Wait until the performance starts then give the seats to your friends sitting in the aisle because of the crush

(f)    Do nothing and leave the front row gap in the seats

 

All plausible options!

 

And the answer (of course) is … (f). Do nothing!

 

Why? 

 

Because unless there is an overriding need for action, improvised solutions tend to make things worse. Factors to note:

  • what if the message is wrong/garbled? You have given the seats to someone else and the top VIPs then show up. Humiliating disaster in the most prominent place in the theatre. VIPs and others you invited will be highly annoyed/embarrassed as you try to sort it all out with the rest of the audience tittering – whole purpose of inviting them that evening wrecked
  • even if the message is not wrong/garbled, any attempt to move someone else into the gap will make other senior guests wonder what is going on and why they were not chosen to have pole position – certainty of more annoyance
  • if you are dealing with invited Ambassadors, NB that above all they care about their status (ie who sits where) – fiddling with carefully planned arrangements involving them is a recipe for creating serious unhappiness
  • running off to check what to do is at least semi-sensible – but your job is politely to help our guests to their seats, not to disappear on errands. So get on with it.
  • giving the seats to your friends is kind but wrong – the VIPs sitting in the front row will be unimpressed.
  • Bottom Line: there may be a gap in the front row. So what? Once the show starts no-one will notice or care. If our guests did not show up that’s their problem, not ours.

Back in real life this happened of course, in Belgrade. My kindly and well-intentioned Embassy colleague made a bee-line for by far the worst option, namely (a). One VIP we had invited felt insulted and walked out and went home in protest. I had to write him a grovelling letter of apology. 

Conclusion? When in doubt, Doing Nothing is usually a good idea.

Wait and see what happens. And, always keep in mind what Robin Renwick’s old Ambassador told him, "some things are important – but don’t matter".