QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  ”If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you and you don’t do that, you are wasting your time on this Earth.”

– Roberto Clemente, 12 time Golden Glove winner with the Pittsburgh Pirates

We are not talking here about the playground/recess conversations of “So-and-so LIKES you.”  We’re talking about very high stakes situations where your personal credibility and the reputation of your company are on the line in a major way with long-lasting repercussions.

Think for example of Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, as he and his company tried to navigate their way through one of the biggest crises to ever hit a corporation.  What did you think of him?  Did you find yourself understanding that he was tasked with trying to organize the most complex crisis response operation required in our lifetime and appreciating that he has done many things right? Or do you think of some of the many highly publicized negatives that have surfaced as this story drags on that make you not like him?  I dare say there are more people in the latter camp. Let’s look at the whole picture.

THE GOOD…

Yes, I think there have been some good things.  I have been particularly impressed with the ads that have been running on TV and the full-page ad in USA Today.  When the best minds of the BP Public Relations professionals (and possibly some consultants) were put together, they came up with the right messages.  (1) We are accepting responsibility. (2) We are working hard to contain the oil and have made significant progress. (3) We realize that this is a huge environmental issue and are using major resources to try to control the impact. (4) We recognize the financial and emotional impact this is having on thousands of people and have set up a claims procedure to deal with those folks as quickly as possible. (5) We will stay with it until the oil has stopped gushing into the Gulf, and beyond that until the damage is righted. (6) We will undertake a rigorous investigation into what went wrong so that we can put measures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.  These are all the right things to say.

And when Tony Hayward himself was the spokesperson on the TV ad, he had the appropriate facial expressions of concern and empathy.  His voice sounded sincere.  He delivered the well-crafted messages well.  So then what was wrong?

THE BAD…

It was in the moments of unscripted answers to questions and unsolicited comments where Mr. Hayward tripped up, and actually fell flat on his face.  The absolute worst example occurred only several weeks into the crisis.  When asked by someone how he was holding up under all of the stress, he casually replied, “I’d like my life back.”  When I first heard it on the news, I was dumbfounded.  I know he didn’t take even a split second to think about how that would sound to those eleven families who had lost loved ones in the initial explosion and all those thousands of people whose ability to make a living would be impacted drastically.  But the question everyone was asking within moments of his uttering those words was, “How could he be so insensitive?”

The public was not about to feel sorry for him.  They were going to identify strongly with that grieving father who immediately said, “I’d like my son’s life back.”  And they would feel sorry for those who would say, “I’d like my livelihood back.”

Surely Mr. Hayward did not mean it the way it sounded - that he cared more about the fact that he was under a lot of stress and couldn’t get on with his normal pursuits.  But there it was -  endlessly aired on news programs and in the social media.

Regardless of all the right things he said in the slick ads, he is likely to be remembered for this one unplanned and disastrous off-the-cuff remark.  If you are in the midst of a crisis, you can never, ever forget that every word you utter may find itself reported - and it could be reported widely and loudly if you fail to think it through.  As the old saying goes, “A closed mouth gathers no feet.”

AND THE UGLY…

But it gets worse.  There may have been some people out there who were willing to give Tony Hayward a break.  Maybe they’d said something they shouldn’t have at one time or another.  They could see how it could happen when you have been under unrelenting pressure for days and weeks on end.  It was a mistake that occurred in a moment.

The same cannot be said for Mr. Hayward’s participation in the yacht race back in London in mid-June.  It took a lot of planning to schedule his appearance there.  There was that long plane ride across the Atlantic where he could have had time to consider how this would appear to the American public.  I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t someone among those PR professionals who crafted the TV ads who was begging him not to do this.  Sure, as the BP spokesperson tried to explain after the uproar had exploded, Mr. Hayward is a human being and had a right to visit his family in England. No one would deny him that, assuming that he’d left competent people in charge in his absence.  But to be frolicking on the clean waters around London with his peers, the elite yacht owners, was just too much to bear - especially for the next-of-kin of the accident victims and the beleaguered fisherman and owners of tourist attractions on the Gulf Coast.  What was he thinking? I can’t begin to guess.  I only know he was not putting himself in the shoes of the human victims of this environmental disaster.

SOME CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE

On the June 24th NBC evening news show, Brian Williams introduced  us to the new face of BP.  Mr. Bob Dudley will now be in charge of BP’s response to the accident.  The officially announced reason for this change is that this will free Mr. Hayward up to run the company.  However, I am quite sure it has a lot to do with the fact that Mr. Hayward has lost the “likeability factor” with the American public.  Consequently he has to step out of the public view if the company is going to have a chance to repair its image.  We probably won’t see his face on TV as much any more.

Unfortunately for him,the way he’ll be remembered is not at all positive.  A lot of people just don’t like him any more, mostly because - as communicated in those unscripted moments noted above — he didn’t seem genuinely concerned and empathetic.  It remains to be seen if Mr. Dudley (who has the advantage of having spent some of his growing up years in Hattiesburg, MS) can do better.

# # #

Of Special Note:  I know that I preach the value of planning and practicing presentations so that they can be as effective as possible, whether you are being interviewed by the media or speaking in front of an audience.  I believe it strongly.  However, when you are a master orator and you are speaking with passion from your heart about things you believe deeply and understand well, you can sometimes excel in memorable ways.

I was reminded of this in mid-June when I visited the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN (what had originally been the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968). Visiting there had been on the “List of Things to Do in Tennessee Before Our Daughter Moves from Nashville.” That time is quickly coming to an end as she just officially received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt and will be moving to Washington, D.C. in September on a Congressional Fellowship to be a legislative aide.  At any rate, while visiting the museum, we learned that, for his famous speech on the Washington Mall on August 28, 1963, the words “I had a dream” did not appear on the page of his prepared remarks!

# # #

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you prepare for those moments of unplanned visibility when you are caught in the glare of the media spotlight or have to stand up in front of an audience of concerned, angry, upset people.

Until next month…KEEP COOL!

Judy Hoffman

1-800-848-3907 PIN 2145

www.judyhoffman.com

jchent@earthlink.net

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  ”It is far, far better to be approximately right than to be exactly wrong.”

– Warren Buffet

With the past six weeks of news centering on the tragic and incredibly sad story of the explosion/fire and resultant oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, how could I write my monthly e-zine about anything other than this crisis?   With so many news commentators, print reporters, and bloggers writing volumes, I hope that I can add something of value.  What I want to weigh in on is the concept of  responsibility.

THE OEFP WAS IN HIGH GEAR EARLY ON

You say you’re not familiar with that acronym??? It’s one that you often see in operation in times of crisis.  It stands for the Office of Emergency Finger Pointing.  In early May, I was attending and exhibiting at the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care Conference in Miami.  That was when chief officials of the three companies at the center of the disaster - BP, Transocean, and Halliburton - were seated next to each other on one side of the table, facing a bunch of very angry members of Congress in a televised hearing.

Had the situation not been so deadly serious (especially in light of the 11 fatalities caused by the initial explosion), it would have been almost comical to watch how the three of them tried to shift responsibility for the accident from one to another.  Halliburton had recently completed a cementing operation, but pointed out it was at the behest of Transocean, the operators of the deepsea oil rig; Transocean claimed that they were operating it at the request of — and under orders from — BP who leased the facility; BP said that all of the operations on the rig were under the control of Transocean, which had the responsibility for safety of the equipment.  It was hard to keep your eye on the hot potato!

Each of these three men obviously had been advised by corporate legal counsel to try to minimize their liability in what was already then known to be a huge case.  Many people with whom I spoke at the conference were appalled at what they saw.  As companies which often hire subcontractors to carry out specific work in their special areas of expertise, they knew without a doubt that this potato was going to fall squarely in the lap of BP, the owner.  Their attempts to sidestep this responsibility made them look really bad.

In an early interview on CBS, BP CEO Tony Hayward was still trying to avoid having the hot potato land in his lap.  He said, “This is not our accident, but it is our responsibility to deal with it, to arrest the leak, to deal with the oil on the surface, to ensure that there is no or minimal environmental damage. And where there are legitimate claims for business interruption, we will make them good.”

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT STATEMENT?

Go back and read what he said again.  I realize that you are reading it more than three weeks later and we all have the benefit of hindsight.  However, a wise communications professional could have helped him keep his foot out of his mouth here.

First, he was still trying to make the point that the accident wasn’t their fault.  With the investigation into exactly what happened just getting underway, why would he want to go out on a limb like this and state it so unequivocally?  From what I’ve heard in recent days about the various investigations that are underway, it appears as if poor BP management decisions aimed at saving money may have played a very big part in the explosion.  Even worse, when Transocean workers brought concerns to the BP managers on site (like finding chunks of an important rubber gasket and rising pressures shown on gauges), they were summarily told to follow BP’s orders.  The rig operators were arrogantly told, “This is how it’s going to be!”  Tony Hayward had taken over as CEO of BP in 2007.  At that time, he was interviewed about the changes he was going to make to a company that had been roundly criticized for serious deficiencies in their safety culture.  These had led to the tragic explosion in Texas City, TX that took the lives of 15 workers and injured many more.  Mr. Haywood said, “We have a leadership style that is too directive and doesn’t listen sufficiently well.”  It seems little had changed in that regard in the ensuing two to three years.

The other major problem with the statement is that Mr. Hayward said BP would “ensure that there is no or minimal damage to the environment.”  Excuse me???  ”Ensure?”  How could he believe, even back on May 4th, that a pipe gushing oil out at an unprecedented rate with no known ways to control it, would not have a major impact on the environment?  Surely as he toured the beaches in Louisiana a few weeks later and saw the globs of oil fouling the heavily damaged wetlands, he would not dare to characterize the damage as “minimal.”  Even a junior PR associate could have come up with better “weasel words,” as some people call them.  Something like, “We will be doing everything in our power to try to limit environmental damage,” would have been better than his “ensure.”

When you have two major problems like this in a statement, it makes people wonder about the credibility of the man who says, “Where there are legitimate claims…we will make them good.”

BUT THEN THERE IS TAKING ON TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY

I cringed more than a little when I heard President Obama say in his news conference on May 27th, “I take full responsibility.”  I’m sure his political advisors had been telling him he had to play more of a central role in dealing with this disaster so it would appear he was doing all he could.  However, I couldn’t help but wonder why he chose to repeat those words so many times.  Maybe the clips I saw on the TV news didn’t do his full statements justice.  Maybe he did, when his comments could be heard in their entirety, say what I think he should have said.

It’s not that he should take full responsibility for the explosion, or for figuring out how to stop the gushing oil or for organizing the clean-up.  He could have said he was taking responsibility for bringing the best technical minds of industry and government together to brainstorm how to stop the gushing (I can’t bring myself to call it “spilling”) and try to protect the environment.  He could have admitted that he should have worked harder to bring to an end the cozy relationships between industry and the regulators when those concerns first were recognized.  (Note: In line with the principle that, after a crisis, some heads need to roll in order to show action, the head of the Minerals Management Service was fired.)  He should have said, as he did, that this oil disaster is on his mind all day long. It was good that he stated that it was his responsibility as chief elected official of this country to provide leadership of the governmental response. He did say, which I think was his major point, “The federal government is fully engaged.”  But to see the TV news story about his news conference headlined with the words “I take full responsibility,” will, I believe, come back and haunt him in the future.

WALKING THE FINE LINE

Admittedly, there is a razor-thin line here when talking about responsibility in a crisis.  People do not like it when you try to shirk responsibilities that rightly belong to you.  But your lawyers will be all over you not to say anything that sounds like admitting liability.  And you don’t want to take on more responsibility than you rightly should shoulder or admit mistakes that weren’t yours.  This is why I always caution my clients, when faced with a question of “Whose responsibility is this crisis anyway?” — especially in the early moments — to say something like the following.  ”It is way too early to try to affix blame for this incident. Right now, our company is focusing on responding appropriately, dealing with the people who have been injured, and doing all we can to protect our employees, the local citizens, and the environment.  We are cooperating with the authorities who have jurisdiction in this matter.  Here is what we are doing right now…”

I certainly hope you never have to face anything like this nightmare. But if you have any kind of serious incident, especially one that involves loss of life or serious injury or damage to the environment, hopefully these words of advice will stand you in good stead.

# # #

NOTE: On this Memorial Day, I hope each of you have taken an opportunity to take some time out to remember the debt of gratitude we owe to our Veterans and those currently serving in the U.S. military services.  We owe them so much.

SPECIAL REQUEST:  Just today it came to my attention that another college (which makes 12 that I know of) has begun using my book “Keeping Cool on the Hot Seat: Dealing Effectively with the Media in Times of Crisis” as a textbook or supplementary reading.  I have to say that I much prefer selling my books 20-30 at a time!  I’ve promised myself that one of my summer projects will be to reach out to a lot more professors at colleges/universities to encourage them to ask me for a complimentary review copy.  It occurs to me that many of you may know of a school whose curriculum in business or communications or PR should deal with how to react when something bad happens to their organization.  If so, I would greatly appreciate it if you would let them know about me — or let me know about them! Thank you.

Until next month…KEEP COOL!

Judy Hoffman

jchent@earthlink.net

www.judyhoffman.com

1-800-848-3907 PIN 2145

JCH Enterprises, 116 Nelson Lane, Clayton, NC 27527, USA

Quote of the Month:  Better to fail at doing something than to succeed at doing nothing.
From “Vitamins for the Spirit” by Robert J. Danzig

What a month for major crises April has turned out to be!  A wide variety of industries have found their reputations - and their ability to be successful and profitable - challenged in the strongest terms.  Just think back to the leading news stories of late:

– All of the airlines that fly to and from Europe were thrown unexpectedly - and through no fault of their own — into a high level crisis mode when millions of passengers were stranded for days by the volcano in Iceland;
– Massey Energy, the owner of several mines, had their operations and numerous previous safety violations come under intense scrutiny after the tragic explosion and the loss of the lives of 11 miners in West Virginia;
– BP Oil saw one of their drilling rigs explode and then sink allowing millions of gallons of oil to foul the waters and now the beaches in the Gulf of Mexico;
– Goldman Sachs’ senior executives were grilled by angry congressional members accusing them of actions which were at least partially to blame for the national financial markets meltdown;
– The State of Arizona has become the center of the controversy over illegal immigration.

All of these crises have had national (and some international) impacts.  You are probably thinking, “These types of things couldn’t happen to our organization.”  And you may well be correct.  But when something negative happens where you work, or when there is even just a rumor or allegation that something might not be quite right, it could be you who picks up the phone and hears, “Hi, this is Steve from The City Gazette.  I have a few questions I’d like to ask you.” Imagine the uncomfortable feeling in your gut at that moment!

In past e-zines and as related in my book, “Keeping Cool on the Hot Seat: Dealing Effectively with the Media in Times of Crisis,” I have covered in detail what  to do during an interview to try to get your side of the story out to your major audiences through the media.  In this issue, I want to give you a few new ideas of things you can do both before and after an interview to improve your chances of getting decent, balanced coverage. I want to thank fellow crisis communications consultant Jonathan Bernstein for pointing these things out.  These items are just a small portion of the excellent advice he has compiled in the newly
revised version of his book “Keeping the Wolves at Bay Media Training” - a very readable and helpful volume which should be on your bookshelf.  (Go to my website at www.judyhoffman.com and click on the Resources tab to get to Jonathan’s website where his publications are listed.  And sign up for his free e-zine too!)

BEFORE THE INTERVIEW

1.  Get rid of the anti-media attitude.  If you’re new to the role of spokesperson, you may be downright scared of them.  You’ve been given some training of how to deal with the media, and the idea has possibly been conveyed that they are the enemy and you have to BEAT them.  Or if you have been dealing with the media for some time, chances are that at least a couple of times the story has not turned out the way you wanted. Whether it was your fault (for not being clear enough or not making your major points strongly enough) or because the reporter came at you with a pre-conceived notion which you were not able to dislodge, you were left with a bad taste in your mouth.  My advice: wipe the slate clean and start fresh with this interaction.  I don’t mean you shouldn’t be wary. (See Point #2)  But don’t assume the worst.  A bad attitude toward the
reporter will show and it will get you off on the wrong foot  Start from the presumption that they have a job to do to relate a story their editors think will be of interest to their readers/viewers.  If you are prepared with the facts from your organization’s viewpoint and you have been trained in how to communicate them honestly and convincingly, there is no reason to assume that you will not be able to do your organization justice.

2. Try to find out about the reporter.  Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.  In whatever time you have before you engage in the interview, do a little research.  On the Internet you can find previous stories with this reporter’s by-line.  On the news media website you can probably read the reporter’s bio.  You can get a sense for their viewpoints and spot any potential biases to which you should be alert.  This knowledge can be very helpful.  Just don’t let it throw you into an anti-media attitude (see Point #1!).

3. Relax!  Easier said than done.  But it is possible to do some things to help.  If you don’t, a reporter could well interpret your tension and nervousness as an indication of your guilt or lack of being truthful.  In reality, it may just be plain old fright at the realization that you are about to be quoted and/or shown on TV for all your colleagues, friends and family to see and Monday-morning quarterback.  (There - aren’t you feeling relaxed now???)  Jonathan suggests some deep breathing and simple stretching exercises which should help you loosen up your muscles.  He also suggests learning to meditate — a useful skill for this and other situations.

4. Set a time limit for the interview.  I, quite frankly, usually didn’t think to do this when I was the company spokesperson.  I suppose I was trying to be as cooperative as possible.  But as Jonathan points out, this helps you keep some control of the interview.  Otherwise, the reporter could just keep asking questions until you run out of patience or stumble into something you shouldn’t. If you have practiced sufficiently, you
should be able to communicate your major messages concisely and even repeat them several times in a relatively short time period.  (Note: If you are uncomfortable bringing the interview to a close,
you could always pre-arrange with a colleague (like you did when you weren’t sure a blind date was going to work out well!) and have him call you to say you were needed elsewhere.

5.  Ask questions about the direction of the story.  This doesn’t apply, of course, if you are in the midst of a fast-breaking story that you know is the reason for a media call.  But if the reporter calls out of the blue, don’t hesitate to ask what the story is about.  You need not be defensive about it. Just indicate that you want to be as prepared as possible to provide him/her with the information desired, so it would be helpful to you both.  You might even ask the reporter if he/she has interviewed any others on this topic.  It would be helpful to know if you are just adding another viewpoint to a story about your industry or if your organization is the subject of an inquiry and the reporter has talked to upset people before you.  As Jonathan cautions, however, do realize that you cannot depend entirely on what is said in answer to your
question.  There have been cases where an interview is gained under false pretenses.  A good spokesperson must be prepared at all times to handle issues, especially those that are currently being discussed in your community or industry.

AFTER THE INTERVIEW

1.  I always advise my clients to provide the reporter with a copy of a written statement.  This is not something to be read as part of the interview.  But writing it out helps ingrain the major points in your mind so that you can convey them.  And it is something the reporter can take back to the news station and refer to if he/she wants to clarify something jotted down in their notes. This way, you aren’t as dependent on their memory.  Jonathan suggests that you e-mail or fax the reporter soon after the interview with a simple message along the lines of: “Thanks for coming out to talk with me.  Here, in my opinion, are some of the
most important points we discussed.”

2. I’d also like to suggest another post-interview technique. After the story appears in the paper or is aired on TV, take the time to send an e-mail or a handwritten note.  Hopefully you will be able to compliment the reporter on his/her balanced reporting or skillful handling of a complex issue.  Trust me when I tell you the reporter will remember this kindness and it can be very helpful in the future.  If, however, you take exception to something that was said, call it to the reporter’s attention as politely but firmly as possible.  You do not want uncorrected information to be re-broadcast.  But don’t get angry and unreasonable about it.
Remember the old saying about not picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.

Thanks, Jonathan, for reminding me of these valuable tips.  To my subscribers, I hope you found them useful.

# # #

Until next month…KEEP COOL!

Judy Hoffman
www.judyhoffman.com
1-800-848-3907 PIN 2145
jchent@earthlink.net

JCH Enterprises, 116 Nelson Lane, Clayton, NC 27527, USA

QUOTE OF THE MONTH: “Talking louder and faster   doesn’t make your idea any better.”
– Randy Pausch,  Author of “The Last Lecture”

Maybe your television, like ours, has been tuned to an unbelievable number of basketball games for the past few weeks.  March Madness is approaching its end as this e-zine is posted.  It was a sad night here on March 25th when the Orangemen of Syracuse University went down to defeat.  Both of our daughters graduated from SU (the older having played basketball for four years for their Utica College campus and the younger being one of the most avid fans in the Carrier Dome).

When Butler University got off to a 10-1 lead early in the game, my husband said, “This is not going to be a good night.”  When the game was over, although SU had scratched their way back and even had the lead with some minutes to go, they ended up losing by four points.  Had they not stumbled so badly at the outset, it might well have been a different story.  As often happens with me, I saw a parallel to crisis management.

WHAT YOU DO IN THE OPENING MOMENTS IS VERY IMPORTANT

When I’m trying to convince an organization of the value of crisis management and media training, I say, “What you do early on sets the tone for the whole response. If you don’t know the right things to do and say when the crisis first breaks, you will spend the whole rest of the time playing catch-up and on the defensive instead of playing your game.”

This is why I highly recommend that organizations prepare crisis communications templates to have on hand.  First, brainstorm about the most likely and/or the most potentially damaging crises that could afflict your company.  Next, develop some fill-in-the-blanks statements to address them.  Leave spaces for the specifics of what happened, but craft the rest of it to hit the high points of an excellent initial or “holding” statement.  If it were a fire, talk about how your fire protection system operated properly, how the local fire company cooperated with you as you have trained with them to do, how your injured employees are being taken care of, and what is being done to make sure the local citizenry will not be adversely impacted.  Pass it all by Legal so they are on board beforehand to avoid delays. Then, when a fire breaks out, you’ll look (and be) prepared to handle things quickly and confidently.  Once you have one for a fire, move on to the others — a disgruntled employee that injures or kills workers, damage done to the environment, a bank robbery, a wandering patient from a nursing home facility, etc.

THEN AVOID “TURNOVERS”

Every commentator on the SU game attributed their loss to the excessive number of turnovers — sloppy plays that ultimately spelled their doom.  If you want to read a truly fascinating story about a crisis that played out in the national news that many of us remember, read Jon F. Harmon’s “Feeding Frenzy: Trial Lawyers, the Media, Politicians and Corporate Adversaries Inside the Ford-Firestone Crisis.”  Mr. Harmon was the head of Public Relations for Ford Truck in 1999 when this high profile case broke when Firestone tires experienced dramatic “tread separation” blowouts that led to rollover accidents that caused the death of 300 people and hundreds of severe injuries.

As Mr. Harmon points out, some of the most serious “turnovers” made by Firestone included:

–  lack of a serious investigation into numerous reported incidences of tire failures in mid-1999 in some Middle East countries and Venezuela;
–  attributing U.S. accidents to driver error (underpressurization of the tires and then poor driver reaction to a blowout) even as the TV visual was of a devastated family with a young mother turned into a paraplegic;
– refusal of the company to release to the public — or to Ford Motor Company — the safety study data they had compiled that led them to eventually recall 6.5 million tires, leaving open a legitimate question as to whether the recall had gone far enough;
–  not including their head of Public Affairs in crisis management meetings with the result that she was blindsided and ended up telling people there was no need for a recall just days before it was issued;
–  trying to get away with just issuing a press release and a one-way satellite-feed announcement of the recall because none of their senior executives would agree to stand up in front of the cameras and reporters in what they knew was going to be a very difficult press conference;
–  serious difficulties in communications with a parent company located half a world away — not only language problems but differences in cultural values;
–  not having the CEO of the company willing and able to be the spokesperson in Congressional hearings, losing credibility when the most senior officer appeared scared or uncaring.

FRIGHTENING THINGS YOU CAN LEARN FROM READING THIS BOOK

I had plenty of difficult experiences in my 16 years as head of Public Affairs for my small chemical manufacturing company in New York.  But our stories were mostly local, often with front-page articles and editorials in our county-wide newspaper. These local issues were challenging enough as we sought to douse the fires of distrust and fear about our products and our processes and perceived health threats.

But if your organization has even the possibility that you could have a high visibility (even a nationwide) crisis — if your products could be deemed a safety threat to a large population –
you owe it to yourself to get a copy of “Feeding Frenzy.”

In it, for example, you will learn:

–  how major press conferences are prepared for, set up and handled;
– what happens when hungry plaintiff attorneys use the media to turn up the heat and try to make the company pay huge settlements to avoid nasty trials that will drag the company through the mud;
– how dangerous it can be for your corporate reputation if politicians see they can gain their moment in the sun as the protector of the people by humiliating you in Congressional hearings;
–  how a supremely lucrative and solid business relationship (like customer and supplier) can be torn asunder irreparably when the companies cannot work together.

Mr. Harmon writes so that you feel like you, yourself, are in the middle of the crisis, trying to figure out what to do.  He doesn’t pull any punches. He admits when Ford made mistakes and he tells you what he and his colleagues think Firestone did wrong.  And he clearly points out the lessons learned from the whole situation.

Even if you don’t think you have the possibility of experiencing a crisis that makes national news for months on end, there are many valuable lessons to be learned here on how to handle more routine crises.

You can obtain his book from either Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com.

Now that March Madness is almost over, perhaps you’ll have time to read!
# # #

Special Note:  Since we moved to North Carolina over three years ago, now I’m rooting for Duke! And I still recommend Jon Harmon’s book, even though he recently told me he’ll be pulling for Michigan State…

Until next month…KEEP COOL!

Judy Hoffman
www.judyhoffman.com
jchent@earthlink.net
1-800-848-3907 PIN 2145

I have another “T” word for you this month. TRUST. Last month I gave some opinions on three brands that began with the letter “T” – Tiger, Tylenol, and Toyota. While the most recent Tylenol crisis has faded from the headlines, there was an incredible amount of media coverage on both Tiger and Toyota. Both of them are certainly still in the midst of dramatic and damaging crises, the fallout from which will continue for some time.

A huge amount of column inches and video footage has been consumed by the public statements of both Tiger Woods and the Chairman of Toyota and the subsequent commentary by all manner of experts. I agree with some of these experts and disagree with others on issues of the timing and delivery of the statements as well as their content. But since I am going to hold to my promise to my subscribers to keep my e-zine an “under three minute read,” I won’t go into all of that. I just want to point out two main things about their public performances.

EYE CONTACT REMAINS VITAL

In Tiger Woods’ case, we saw an excellent example about the need for people on the firing line to keep eye contact with their audience if they hope to be believed. I drum this lesson into my clients in our workshops. If you can’t look people in the eye when you are talking to them (in person or in an interview), it means – to all body language experts as well as the man in the street – that you are not being truthful. In the carefully managed physical set-up of Tiger’s statement, he required that there be only two cameras in the room – one focused on him at the podium and another set up behind him. For the first nine minutes, thee camera on him was employed. Since he was using it to address all of the people watching him on TV, he was obviously advised to look directly into that camera when he looked up from his script. It helped him connect with the audience and made him look more credible. His message was certainly compelling. As we watched, we hung on his every word.

But nine minutes into it, the screen went dark for a few seconds. Murphy’s law was in effect, and there was a camera malfunction. The second camera kicked in, and for the last four minutes of his presentation, we never saw Tiger’s eyes. We saw his profile, his mother, business associates and friends. I don’t know about you, but my mind started to wander as I became distracted watching what those people in the audience were doing. And – most importantly – I couldn’t see Tiger’s eyes so that I could judge his sincerity, especially when he pleaded at the end for people to give him a chance to prove that they could believe in him again. He was asking us to trust that he will now do the right things, but we weren’t as compelled because we’d lost the ability to look him in the eye.

MESSAGE CONTENT IS IMPORTANT TOO

In our workshops, we talk a lot about the fact that a heartfelt apology is oftentimes needed during a crisis. I’ll fight tooth and nail against those who say an apology is always an indication of weakness and an invitation to a lawsuit. When lawyers adamantly insist that “No comment” is the only answer, I ask management teams to reconsider. I recommend bringing in legal counsel to advise them how to word their statements so that they can apologize when that is warranted, but do it in a way that minimizes the chance that the public will want to sue them. I was therefore shocked to hear Mr. Toyoda’s comments in his congressional hearing remarks. What he actually said was, “We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization. I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced.” Several commentators summarized his remarks by saying, “The Chairman of Toyota apologized to the driving public for putting company growth ahead of safety considerations.” This was a reasonable interpretation of his words. Let the lawsuits begin! Surely with as much time as he had to prepare for this appearance, he should have been counseled not to word it this way. Any good lawyer or crisis management consultant would have advised dropping that first sentence. He would have been much better off saying, “We made a mistake. We are very sorry. Here is what we are doing to fix it.”

REGAINING TRUST

In Tiger’s case, his wife put it best. She told him that his apology would not depend on words, but on his behavior going forward. There are no excuses for his past behavior. The only way people (his family as well as his business associates and fellow players) will know if he is worthy of their trust is through his actions in the coming days, months, and years. It will take a long time to erase the sordid images that were shown on the airwaves and internet. I happen to think he is right to categorically refuse to discuss all of those past affairs in a public venue. He should complete his rehab process, devote himself to good works through his educational foundation (working with kids), try to make amends with his wife and children, and return to golf when he is ready. The stain on his reputation will likely always be there, but if he succeeds in all of the above, we may be able to trust him again.

Toyota has a tough road ahead to regain trust. They are unfortunately in a position where a lot of people still don’t think they’ve been honest with their customers and dealers. There is currently a lot of “chatter” in the media that asserts the gas pedal assembly (with or without car mat issues) is not to blame for the uncontrolled acceleration problems, but that it is actually an electronics malfunction. Toyota engineers say it can’t happen because of their failsafe systems. They also state that an error code would always appear in the computer system. I personally saw the “Nightline” episode this past week where a driving expert was able to cause uncontrolled acceleration by simulating a short circuit in the electronics. No failsafe system kicked in as the car sped frighteningly up to 90 miles an hour while the brakes were being applied as hard as possible. No error code appeared on the computer system afterwards. So when a friend told me that she’d had her Toyota in for the gas pedal repair so she was “good to go,” I had to ask her if she was sure.

All this uncertainty inevitably leads to a serious lack of trust in the organization. For a company that built its reputation on the premise that they could be trusted for high quality with a lot of attention paid to safety issues, this could be devastating. People have many choices when they buy a car. In my opinion, no new TV advertising campaign focused on the fact that Toyota is a brand people have trusted for 50 years is going to be strong enough to drown out the as yet unanswered questions in the mind of many consumers. These folks are not going to gamble with the safety of themselves and their families. Until Toyota gets to the bottom of the problem, they will have a very difficult time regaining the public’s trust.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

In the cases of both Tiger and Toyota, public apologies were required, and they were made. But apologizing is only the first step in resolving a crisis. It is further required of individuals and organizations that they take meaningful steps to demonstrate their remorse and to rectify the situation. In both of these situations, the depth and breath of the crises are such that their reputations will never, in my opinion, be totally repaired. These issues will be brought up time and time again in the future whenever their names are mentioned. How much this tarnish will fade over time has everything to do with their actions in the future and how hard they are willing to work at rebuilding the trust once placed in them.
# # #

Special Note: Now that the Olympics are coming to a close today, perhaps we can all get back to going to bed at a decent hour. But wasn’t it glorious to watch all of these athletes – people who have devoted so much time and energy to preparing thoroughly for the moments when they laid it all on the line? They would never dream of appearing for their event without having spent considerable effort learning the basic skills required and then having practiced until an excellent performance could come as second nature. The same can be said for preparing for a media event, especially during a crisis when time is of the essence. If I can help, with either the basic skills workshop or some refresher training, please give me a call!

I wish I had a nickel for every time – when I’ve been talking to a company about how well prepared they are if a crisis were to hit today – they look at me as if I’m being unreasonable and say, “We don’t need to talk about that! We have a great reputation.” If I were to have this conversation tomorrow, I would just say, “Think for a minute about the three T’s – Tiger, Tylenol, and Toyota.”

Up until a few months ago, you would have been hard pressed to come up with three different brand names (and make no mistake, Tiger was a brand – for professional golf as well as the products he endorsed) whose reputations were any higher than these three. Tiger was named the Athlete of the Year by Sports Illustrated and amassed the greatest fortune of any athlete to date. Johnson & Johnson had been consistently rated in polls of Americans as one of the most highly regarded companies in the country, mainly due to the outstanding way they had handled the crisis when their capsules were laced with cyanide in the Chicago area, causing the death of seven people back in 1982. Among the automobile buying public in the U.S. and around the world, Toyota’s reputation for quality and reliability led them to be number one or number two in car sales year after year, making them very profitable while their competitors struggled mightily.

We discussed Tiger’s troubles last month, so I’ll let the man off the hook here while he continues to keep his very low profile. (Watch out when he does reappear, however, as the media frenzy will be resumed in full force, examining every aspect of his personal and professional life.) This month we’ll examine the other two T’s to see what we can learn from their experiences.

TYLENOL’S TROUBLES

If you are the parent or grandparent of a small child, you may have been aware of the September 2009 recall of certain Tylenol Children’s and Infant’s over-the-counter medicines. Their press release said it was because “one inactive ingredient did not meet all quality standards.” If you dug deeper, you would have found some websites that explained this meant that one of the ingredients was suspected of being contaminated with B. cepacia bacteria which certainly could have been detrimental to children. This incident might well have passed with no lasting damage to J&J’s corporate reputation or that of McNeil PPC Inc (former McNeil Labs), their consumer health division that manufactured Tylenol products.

But then in November of 2009, McNeil PPC Inc. recalled five lots of Tylenol Arthritis Pain Caplets because of a nauseating, moldy odor that sickened a bunch of people. There were a number of news articles and TV coverage on this. People began to notice. Then came the bombshell. On January 15, 2010 the number of Tylenol products recalled for the same problem swelled to 60 million! J&J’s press release called the illnesses caused by their products (nausea, vomiting and diarrhea) “temporary and non-serious.” If you or a loved one of yours was afflicted, you might have had a negative reaction to this rather dismissive description.

J&J indicated that they had traced the problem to the breakdown of one of the chemicals used to treat the wooden pallets on which the packaging materials were stored and transported. No explanation was given of WHY this chemical broke down. Again, consumers could turn to consumer advocate websites. There they found that a certain fungus caused this breakdown. And those who read about this fungus would find it could cause some quite serious ailments of the cornea of the eye! While I have not to date read any media accounts that allege corneal damage has been caused, the whole matter raises quality/purity questions in the mind of the consumer.

People have a choice when they go to the pharmacy to purchase an over-the-counter medication to combat arthritis pain. With the recent negative publicity surrounding Tylenol, I wouldn’t be surprised if their sales show a distinct dip this quarter.

TOYOTA’S NIGHTMARE

Speaking of sales dips! Sales of Toyotas have plunged in December and January. Frustrated owners of various models have vented their spleens against the company on the web, with one particularly irate customer naming himself “Deathtrap Owner.” When I went online to do some research, I found that there were almost 21 million Google hits to “Toyota Recall.”

Last fall you may remember hearing of accelerators that were sticking and causing uncontrolled speed-ups. Initially these were linked by the company to the floor mats. Although some owners expressed skepticism that this had been the cause of their problems, they didn’t kick up too much of a fuss. Toyota offered to shave down the gas pedal’s size and some people simply removed their floor mats or obtained different ones.

But complaints about sticking accelerators persisted. On January 21st, two million cars were recalled to fix what Toyota described as a problem that occurred in “rare” instances. Then, on January 26th, Toyota announced they were halting sales of the affected models and also halting production of these models – an unprecedented step. When the figures are compiled worldwide, there are now some nine million recalled automobiles.

The recall process itself is being badly managed. Owners who saw their models on the recall list were told to call their dealers. The dealers don’t know what to tell their customers. They do not have new parts to replace what has been determined to be a gas pedal assembly that might malfunction, so they tell people not to bring in their cars. Customers are told to wait until they receive a letter from Toyota. You can imagine that they are not feeling very good about driving a car around that might be subject to racing out of control!

To make matters worse, the January 28th press release from Toyota stated, “Toyota has taken the unprecedented step of stopping production to help serve our customers quickly. (We are) working closely with the pedal supplier on a revised design that effectively remedies the problem. Those pedals are now in full production to support Toyota’s needs. At the same time we continue to work with the supplier to test effective pedal modifications for existing vehicles on the road that will be available to our customers as quickly as possible.”

Do you see the problem here? From their own words you pick up that their first priority was to work on gas pedal assemblies for their new cars to “meet Toyota’s needs,” leaving current owners to stew and fret longer. Those who had been loyal Toyota customers are not going to react well to this treatment. On one blog, a man who had owned a series of Toyotas said, “I am SO DONE with Toyota.”

Toyota’s major talking points – as they’ve been visible under all of the wailing of their angry customers – have been that (1) problems have occurred only in “rare” instances and (2) if a problem with a sticky accelerator does surface, it does not happen suddenly, but provides plenty of warning so that the owner can stop driving the car. Had they gotten these two messages out quickly, before the avalanche of negativity grew so dramatically, they might have been able to control the crisis better. Now they are being reactive. It was only within the past few days that the CEO of Toyota appeared in public, and then only a brief appearance in Sweden. The NBC TV News commentator whose clip I watched on the Internet said he “appeared to not know what to do – after all Toyota doesn’t have much experience in these things.”

BACK TO MY MAJOR POINT

Just because your company has been lucky so far, because your corporate reputation has been a good one to date, and because you have run a tight ship in the past, it does not mean that you shouldn’t be prepared for that day when you find yourself at the beginning of a crisis. When things start to go wrong, they go wrong FAST. There is often no time to call in a crisis communications consultant to put your management team through some training to help manage the situation. Prepare now so you can do and say the right things early on and reduce the life cycle of the crisis and the impact on your organization.

# # #

Quote of the Month:  My mind works like lightning –  one brilliant flash and it is gone.  — Anonymous

My daughter, visiting for the holidays from Nashville, told me I shouldn’t stress about getting my e-zine out by my self-imposed end-of-the-month deadline.  As she pointed out, few of you are waiting anxiously for it to appear at this time of year.  Maybe fewer still want to hear any more about the whole Tiger Woods fiasco.  But there is a central tenet of crisis communications that is illustrated so well in this example, I felt I should not overlook making the point.

The morning that the story broke about the “minor traffic incident” near his home, as soon as Tiger refused to talk to the police who wanted to interview him,  I said to my husband, “There’s something seriously wrong here.” The more he refused to talk to the police or make a meaningful public comment about it, the stronger my conviction became that a major crisis was brewing.

With the revelations of the ensuing weeks, we all realize just how deep and wide Tiger’s problems are.  We all have witnessed how someone with a lofty reputation, based on superb skills and abilities, could become the butt of late-night comic jokes and be an embarrassment to many of those who paid him millions to have his name attached to their products and services.

I’m not going to re-hash all that has been said or sit in moral judgment. All I want to do is point out how an information vacuum will lead very quickly to a multitude of rumors and speculation about what might have happened.  In Tiger’s case, I can understand why he was silent at the beginning.  He could not tell the police a story that would have later become known as lies.

Think about this if you and your organization are suddenly thrust into the midst of a crisis. If you have an industrial accident where someone is hurt or one of your products malfunctions and endangers someone, the longer you wait to tell your side of the story, the more other people will frame the story, probably making it worse than it really was.

So speed is required.  In order to respond quickly, pre-planning is necessary.  Whatever negative thing is likely to occur at your organization should have been discussed ahead of time.  For each brainstormed potential crisis identified, decisions must be made. What would be your first response? What would you say to the traditional media and social networking sites?  If you have facts to explain what happened, but you wait too long to get it out there, you run the risk of being overrun by the half-truths and innuendos that are already circulating.  You will be put on the defensive, having to spend a lot of time putting out fires.

Tiger’s situation is magnified because his behavior seems to go back over several years.  He cannot claim momentary weakness, a one-time thing.  As I have always stressed in my media training workshops, first organizations must DO the right thing.  Then, and only then, can they SAY the right thing.  If you do not have a good strong story to tell, no public relations guru is going to be able to wave a magic wand and make it all go away with no damage to your reputation.

But if you do have a reasonable explanation for what happened, be sure you are ready and able to communicate it quickly so that you can get on top of the story instead of having to play catch-up and losing control.

# # #

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OF YOU!

I sincerely hope that 2010 will be a healthy and prosperous one for you and your family.  On a professional level, I can only hope that one of your New Year’s resolutions is that you will take at least one more step in the area of crisis preparedness, and do it as early in the year as possible.  (References below are to my book, “Keeping Cool on the Hot Seat: Dealing Effectively with the Media in Times of Crisis.”)

If you haven’t started anything yet, at least do the brainstorming with your senior managers of possible things that could go wrong in your organization (Chapter 3).

If you’ve brainstormed, but haven’t done the next step of developing your plan of who you would need to call and what your first actions would be, see Chapter 4 and use page 20 as a template for a crisis communications plan.

If you’ve done this work for a few of your potential crises, work on a few more of them this year. (Remember, if you’ve done the brainstorming thoroughly, there will be LOTS of items on your list! If everyone in your organization does not understand who the designated spokespersons are (your highest ranking official is certainly one, but not primary in my opinion), see Chapter 5.

If you’ve done all this, but you haven’t put your senior managers who would function as a Crisis Management Team through a great media training workshop in the past two years, call me!!!! I’d be happy to work with you.

And if you haven’t had a recent (within the past year) mock crisis drill to assess whether everything would work the way it should, make that a project for the coming few months. (If you need help with coming up with some scenarios to test things out, I’d be glad to provide them - just contact me. No charge.)

Again, Happy New Year!

Judy Hoffman
1-800-848-3907 PIN 2145
jchent@earthlink.net
www.judyhoffman.com

JCH Enterprises, 116 Nelson Lane, Clayton, NC 27527, USA

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  Everything I say is fully    substantiated by my own opinion.
(Seen on a T-shirt–author unknown)

I’ve said it many times, and in a number of different contexts: you must be PREPARED before you go into a media interview if you want to succeed.  You may not have a lot of time to prepare if it’s a fast-breaking emergency incident - say, a fire in the facility with black smoke drifting toward the neighbors.  But you can still put together your main talking points before the camera starts rolling.

When it’s an interview that you agreed to conduct at a pre-arranged time, either one-on-one or a press conference, there is absolutely no excuse for not preparing.  You need to spend quality time with your closest advisors, figuring out how to deliver your organization’s message as effectively as possible.  Preparing does not just mean, however, that you develop your key points, or “must air messages” as crisis consultant Jim Lukaszewski calls them.  It includes thinking carefully about where the reporters will be coming from when they start asking questions.  What’s on THEIR minds?

Take a Lesson From the San Francisco Mayor

A dramatic example of the reputation damage that can occur if you fail to do this kind of preparation comes from a recent local TV interview with Mayor Gavin Newsom.  Mark Bernheimer, a fellow crisis communications expert and leader of MediaWorks Resource Group, was good enough to forward me a video clip of this interview (which I subsequently shared with some of my past clients). You can see the whole interview yourself by going to cbs5.com; click on “Video Library” and search for Gavin Newsom; the one you want is Nov. 19, 2009)

Mayor Newsom had decided a few weeks previously to drop his bid to become California’s next governor.  Soon afterwards, he pretty muchdisappeared from public view for almost a month.  It’s fairly obvious when a Mayor does that — he missed numerous functions at which he was expected. And his press secretary was not able to provide much information about his whereabouts.  (No, he wasn’t “hiking on the Appalachian trail,” which later turned out to be “flying to South America to be with my soul mate” like South Carolina Governor Sanford. But he was absent nonetheless.)

When the Mayor chose to return to his public life, he accepted an invitation to an interview so he could talk about the city’s $552 million deficit.  He obviously had his talking points on this subject memorized and was anxious to discuss it. What he failed (miserably) to do was to anticipate that his prolonged, unexplained absence from the Mayor’s office would be uppermost in the mind of the public and, therefore, the primary area of questioning from the reporter.

The first interview question, pointedly directed to the reason for his long absence, was met with an icy “A $552 million deficit!  That’s what we need to talk about!” complete with his fist pounding his hand.

Things Went Downhill from There

I would assume that, at some point in his career, Mayor Newsom had undergone some media training.  Apparently he wasn’t focusing during the part when the instructor explained what a “bridge” is.  It is NOT being so intent on conveying your “must air messages” that you totally ignore a legitimate question from the reporter.   It is NOT naively believing that you, as the interviewee, can totally control an interview.  By obviously trying to circumvent the topics he didn’t want to discuss, he just fueled the reporter’s investigative fires. Instead, he should have come to the interview with a few well thought-out statements about why it had been necessary to miss some public events (perhaps he really was ill for some of them, as he claimed) and what he had been doing during his absence from the office.  THEN he could have bridged to his major message with an “It’s important for you to know what I’ve been working on is…”

As it was, the reporter and the Mayor continued to verbally spar over his refusal to give acceptable answers to reasonable questions.  The situation escalated, with tempers flaring.  It may not have been informative for the viewing public, but it sure was  entertaining!  Emotional outbursts are dramatic, and drama makes it to the newscast.

The Mayor became so flustered,he didn’t even make decent points about what he was going to do about the deficit; he just gave some gross generalizations about having “a lot of work to do.” Then the Mayor stood up abruptly and moved toward the door.  On his way out, he made another error. As he reached for the doorknob, he called back over his shoulder, “Off the record, I am amazingly disappointed.”  Guess what, Mayor?  That was in no way off the record!  As also should have been explained in media training, to be considered “off the record,” you have to obtain the reporter’s agreement PRIOR to saying anything you don’t want reported.

The Moral of the Story: Think Like a Reporter

As much as you want to do your best to try to manage an interview, you must always remember that there are two parties to the interaction.  Your interests are best served when you can anticipate most of the likely questions a reporter will pose and take time to compose - and rehearse - the best possible answers and then effectively bridge to your major messages.

#  #  #

SPECIAL NOTE:  I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving.  And now it is on to the next holiday! If any of you are looking for a gift, consider this: I am having a HUGE sale on the book in which my chapter, “Taking the HEAT: A Powerful Tool for Dealing with Angry People,” appears.  It outlines the four-step process that I teach in mini-workshops and seminars on how to get someone who is really angry with you to calm down enough that you can talk to them reasonably and try to come to a resolution.  It works — with colleagues, customers, teenagers, spouses, in-laws, neighbors, etc.  Mine is one of 70 articles (including folks like “Chicken Soup for the Soul” author Mark Victor Hansen, motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, and others.  They cover topics like Overcoming Obstacles on Your Way to Prosperity, How You Think Determines Your Life, Business Tips for Success, Keeping Your Health, and Balancing Work and Family.  The book has been selling for $16.95, but I have to make room in my garage shelving for a new printing of “Keeping Cool on the Hot Seat,” so I would be happy to let you have a copy for $5.00 plus $2.75 for shipping via Media Mail.  Just let me know by e-mail that you want to take advantage of this offer for “Walking with the Wise”, and provide your mailing address.  (Don’t order on my website as you won’t be able to get the sale price.)

Until next month….KEEP COOL!

Judy Hoffman
www.judyhoffman.com
jchent@earthlink.net
1-800-848-3907 PIN 2145

JCH Enterprises, 116 Nelson Lane, Clayton, NC 27527, USA

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  Men may doubt what you say, but they  will believe what you do.  — Lewis Cass

(Editor’s Note:  Last month I reprinted the first part of a very good article by fellow crisis communications expert Tony Lentini. In Part I, he discussed the first three mistakes: (1) No Plan and No Internal Notification System; (2) Putting the Lawyers in Charge, and (3) Shutting Out the News Media.   Here is the second part.)

4.  Using Untrained Spokespeople

As humans, we’ve been communicating all our lives, so we all should be experts, right?

Wrong.

As the saying goes, anything worth doing is worth doing well.  That’s especially true when a crisis is unfolding and your organization’s credibility and reputation are on the line.  When you are about to hold a press briefing, you’d better be ready.  That means having your facts down cold, anticipating the questions you’ll be asked and knowing what your responses will be.  This is definitely not the time to wing it.

There’s a scene from the old Bob Newhart television series that crisis communications trainers like to use to illustrate why “winging it” is a terrible idea.  Bob the psychiatrist has been invited on a television talk show and arrives completely unprepared.  The hostess is attractive, sweet and reassuring as she makes small talk while Bob’s makeup is applied.  But when the cameras start rolling, she turns into an aggressive, probing, hostile and cynical reporter who is highly skeptical of psychiatry.   She grills Bob unmercifully and his attempts to deal with the questions only make things worse.  Poor Bob gets his head handed to him on the air.

If you think this can’t happen in real life, think again.   There is another famous crisis training clip involving then Exxon-CEO Lawrence Rawl being oh-so-gently taken over a cliff by Good Morning America co-anchor Kathleen Sullivan after the Exxon Valdez spill.  He was stiff, wooden and talked in circles about “The Plan” for the cleanup.  When pressed to answer questions, he accused Sullivan of creating a PR nightmare for Exxon.  He was worse than ineffective.

If the chairman of one of the world’s largest, most successful companies could benefit from media training, chances are that your spokesperson needs crisis communications training, too.  Media training teaches you how to develop and stick to a limited number of messages that convey your company’s position in a credible, empathetic manner.  It provides techniques for “bridging,” or briefly answering (or not answering) an interviewer’s questions and then getting back to your messages.  It teaches you how to anticipate virtually any question you may be asked and how to stay on message no matter what.  It even teaches body language.

There are two schools of thought on crisis media training.  One, I call the “Boot Camp Approach” because it takes raw recruits (in this case your executives and spokespeople) and breaks them down, then rebuilds them into flawless media machines.

The only problem with that approach is the “breaking down” process, which generally involves humiliating the trainee by subjecting him or her to a hostile interview followed by a brutal critique of all the things the unfortunate spokesperson did wrong.  It makes most people never want to do another interview again, even though their interview skills improve as the training program progresses.

I prefer a kinder, gentler approach:  The would-be spokesperson is still subjected to an interview, but the reporter-trainer is not hostile and the critique emphasizes positives.  Negative aspects are noted, but more along the lines of:  “How could you have handled that question a little better?”  Most people undergoing the training are smart enough to know when they have made a mistake and are more apt to self-correct if treated in a respectful, rather than hostile, manner.

Crisis communications training should empower your spokespeople.  Knowledge is power and power breeds confidence.

Don’t skimp when it comes to media training.

5.  No Outside Perspective

I was contracted to advise the CEO of a major company facing a serious crisis involving possible bribery of foreign officials to facilitate business in their notoriously corrupt country.  The stakes were potentially enormous:  hundreds of millions of dollars in fines; SEC sanctions; jail time for employees; loss of significant business; and severe reputational damage.

A small group of senior executives and I were brainstorming likely media questions and answers with the CEO, who dodged a question I asked that was certain to come up in media interviews.  It got uncomfortable in the room as I repeated the question again and again, until the CEO finally snapped at me in anger.  He immediately caught himself and apologized, adding, “That’s one reason we have you here; so I don’t get frustrated and blow up on some reporter asking the same question.”

This real-life example illustrates just one reason why it is important to retain the services of a crisis management consultant when things go seriously wrong.  He or she can speak
freely whereas a regular employee might be reluctant to do so.

Other pluses include:

*  The consultant has probably handled situations similar to yours before and can put that experience to work for you;
*  An outsider looks at things differently and is therefore more likely to challenge long-held assumptions, break through groupthink mentality and offer creative solutions;
*  Many crisis communications consultants offer related services, such as media training;
*  A good consultant will have relationships with the media, government regulators, specialty legal firms and others that could prove helpful in your situation.

Surviving a Crisis

Bad things sometimes happen to good people and organizations.  The trick is to deal with the crisis at hand immediately and proactively in a direct and honest manner.  That sounds easy, but when you’re up to your neck in alligators, you might not be thinking clearly.  That’s why it is imperative to have a plan, test it regularly and follow it when a crisis occurs.

The other important thing to remember in any crisis is to investigate the causes thoroughly and then correct what caused the problem in the first place.  That could mean extra safety training for your employees, or equipment repairs and upgrades, or any number of things.  The more serious the crisis, the more important it is for you to determine the contributing factors and fix them so the same event doesn’t happen again.

Avoid the five big mistakes, fix the problem and the likelihood is that your reputation will survive its test of fire.

# # #

Reprinted with permission from “Risk Management Magazine,” Copyright 2009 RIMS, Inc.  All rights reserved

(Tony Lentini is president of Lentini Creative Communications,Houston, TX, www.CrisisManagers.com. He has more than 30 years of public affairs experience working with some of America’s largest,
most successful companies. Contact: tony@lentinicreativecommunications.com.

Hope you had a Happy Hallowe’en!  Until next month…KEEP COOL!

Judy Hoffman
JCH Enterprises, 116 Nelson Lane, Clayton, NC 27527, USA

Quote of the Month:  The 50-50-90 rule:
Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right,
there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.
Anonymous

(Editor’s Note:  I have received permission from a fellow crisis communications consultant to reprint this article which I saw published earlier in Jonathan Bernstein’s e-zine “The Crisis Manager.”  A longer version first appeared in the June 2009 issue of “Risk Management Magazine” under the title, “After It Hits the Fan.” It makes all of the important points that I would recommend, and he says it so well I decided not to try to reinvent the wheel! The entire article is longer than my usual e-zine, so I will publish it in two parts.)

FIVE BIG MISTAKES COMPANIES MAKE IN A CRISIS (Part 1)
By Tony Lentini

It was nine o’clock on Christmas Eve when my phone rang.  It was a reporter.

“Is it true they’re going to evacuate Bridgeport?” he asked. The North Texas city was the location of my company’s largest single moneymaking asset, a natural gas processing plant.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your gas plant is on fire and the rumor is, they’re going to evacuate the entire city,” the reporter explained.

“Let me check into that,” I said, trying to sound as though I knew what was going on.  I took his number and said I’d call back shortly.

Within about 10 minutes, I had a better picture of the situation.  Yes, our gas plant was on fire.  The local fire department, with assistance from others in the area, had contained the blaze to one corner of the facility.  No assessment of damage at this time.  And neither we nor the local authorities were calling for Bridgeport’s evacuation.

I called the reporter back, told him an evacuation wasn’t necessary at this time, and gave him a brief update on efforts to control the fire.  Then I called various company sources to gather additional facts and prepared a brief statement for the news media.

One week later, I learned that the company CEO and CFO still hadn’t been informed that our biggest revenue generating facility had caught fire and would be out of commission for a number of weeks.  The manager of the division that operated our gas plants tended to play his cards close to the vest and hadn’t gotten around to delivering the bad news.

This real-life example illustrates five major mistakes many companies make in a crisis:

1:  No Plan and No Internal Notification System

A good plan should not try to anticipate every possible crisis that may befall an organization but should, at a minimum:

*  Establish a mandatory internal notification system and telephone contact list;

*  Identify the people and disciplines within your company to be included on a Crisis Management Committee;

*  Develop a contact list of the appropriate government, regulatory and public safety agencies, as well as any news organizations that may need to be notified;

*  Identify and gather details on company facilities where a mishap could have public safety implications (and ensure that evacuation plans are in place for those locations, as well as for nearby residences and businesses);

*  Provide for training of key personnel and tabletop exercises to test the plan periodically.

A mandatory notification system within your company is one of the most important components of any crisis plan.  Management and the appropriate departments need to know about the crisis situation before the news media and regulators start calling.

The notification list should include contact information for representatives from the following disciplines: senior management; legal counsel; insurance/risk management; HSE (health, safety and environment); and public relations/corporate communications.  It should be posted in all company locations.

For one company with numerous remote field locations and workers who operated semi-autonomously, we produced individual wallet cards with the notification list on one side and basic tips for crisis media interviews on the other.  We also media-trained all field personnel.

2:  Putting the Lawyers in Charge

That may seem counterintuitive, since many crises involve death, injury or damage to property and these things tend to generate lawsuits.  But lawyers can be the very worst choice for leading a crisis management effort.  That’s because they are hard-wired to avoid lawsuits.  As such, they’re likely to shut down any
communications efforts or tie them up with restrictions and legal language when candor and clarity are called for.  A legal expert does need to be on the Crisis Management Team, but only as an adviser carrying equal weight with other team members.

One of the simplest and most effective methods for defusing a crisis is for the company spokesperson to express genuine concern and apologize for any disruptions, damage or loss of life.  Your legal department may take a very dim view of such a course of action, fearing that it is tantamount to admitting legal responsibility, but it is almost always the right thing to do.

Former “Big Five” accounting firm Arthur Andersen relied far too much on its General Counsel during the Enron scandal when Andersen’s auditors helped the rogue energy marketing company cook its books.  Instead of admitting that a few bad apples had acted improperly and assisting with the investigation, Andersen circled the wagons, virtually shut down all public communication, and sealed its own doom.  Don’t put the lawyers in charge.

3:  Shutting Out the News Media

The third big mistake companies make in a crisis is excluding the news media when the bad news goes public.  Contrary to the popular saying, “No news is good news,” during a crisis, any news vacuum will be filled with rumors and speculation (usually negative).  At best, a company that fails to communicate looks insensitive and uncaring; at worst, it appears to have something to hide.

Years ago, I was called on to assist an oil company that had had an accidental spill in the reservoir that supplies drinking water to the City of Dallas.  Reporters and local officials seeking information about the incident had been turned away at the gate to the storage facility where the oil spill occurred.  After visiting the site, I countermanded the order barring reporters and instead organized a visit for news organizations and area officials to witness the cleanup.  We also hired an independent water quality consultant to test for contaminants and made the results public.  Instead of condemning the company for having spilled the oil in the first place, the public officials (including a member of the County Water Board) praised it for openness and for the “textbook” cleanup operation.  News stories on the spill were equally positive.

Critical to dealing effectively with the news media is preparing a statement that addresses most or all of the “Five W’s” reporters try to put in the lead paragraph of every story:  Who; What; When; Where and Why.   Crisis planners call this a “holding statement,” meaning it holds off reporters for a period while the company investigates the incident and its causes.  I don’t like that term because if the statement is comprehensive enough and you have a relationship with the news media and a reputation for honesty, the so-called holding statement is often the only one you have to issue.  In all but the highest-profile crises, the media usually moves on to the next big thing pretty rapidly.

The key to an effective statement is to provide only what you know to be factual (anything else is speculation and to be avoided like the plague).  Stay away from any discussion of causes (unless you know for certain, which is seldom the case in a developing situation), liability and insurance coverage.  The first paragraph of a typical statement might read something like this:

HOUSTON, March 3, 2008-A large fire (What) broke out around 2 p.m. today (When) at XYZ Corporation’s (Who) oil refinery located in Baytown (Where).  The company reported all refinery personnel accounted for with no deaths or injuries.  The cause of the fire (Why) is under investigation, according to company spokesperson John Smith…

Note that in this case, the “Why” is not addressed other than to say the cause is “under investigation.”  Reporters may ask about causes any number of times, but your job is to only present the facts, not to speculate.  “Under investigation” is an acceptable response because it is the truth and represents the extent of your knowledge at the time.  The sample statement above should go on to discuss any public impact, such as evacuations, road closings and possible toxic releases, the  status of the fire at the time of the statement, etc.  Generally speaking, your initial statement will be relatively brief, reflecting the limited number of facts at hand in the early stages of the crisis.  You will be asked additional questions.  Just remember never to speculate.  “I do not have that information at this time but will be happy to share it with you as soon as we know more” is another acceptable answer to a question requiring speculation.

It is also okay to say, “Our company policy is to never discuss specifics with respect to insurance coverage.”

What is not acceptable is shading the truth or speculating.

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Reprinted with permission from “Risk Management  Magazine.” Copyright 2009 RIMS, Inc.  All rights reserved.

[Tony Lentini is president of Lentini Creative Communications, Houston, TX, www.CrisisManagers.com. He has more than 30 years of public affairs experience working with some of America’s largest, most successful companies. Contact: tony@lentinicreativecommunications.com

Until next month, when I present Part 2 of Tony’s article…
KEEP COOL!!!