QUICK TIPS FOR “KEEPING COOL”
A monthly e-zine on crisis management
brought to you by Judy Hoffman

Quote of the month: “Leadership is about solving problems. If your people don’t bring you problems, it means they have stopped trusting you or they have concluded that you don’t care!” — General Colin Powell

“WE CAN’T BE CAUGHT NAKED!”

I realize that I am taking some risk here with my title for this edition. Some of my subscribers’ over-zealous spam filters could decide that I am promoting something unwholesome. In reality, all I am doing is quoting one of the participants in my most recent workshop.

It was my privilege to be invited to be the subject matter expert at the July meeting of the Lower Hudson Valley/Northern New Jersey Vistage CEO Group (formerly TEC). This is a world-wide organization whose members are CEO’s and key executives who get together monthly in small boards with a trained facilitator to discuss issues, opportunities and matters of mutual concern with others who have the responsibility for leading their organizations.

My topic was “How to Survive the Glare of Unflattering Headlines.” There were ten CEO’s in attendance. They were an attentive and engaged audience, particularly when it came time for them to work on one of the two scenarios I had prepared for them: (1) a huge fine levied by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for apparent deficiencies in their safety training program and (2) a homicide in the workplace perpetrated by an employee who had been terminated.

At the end of the session, the Group Chair of this Vistage Group, Phil Liebman, asked each of the participants to name the most important “take away” from the presentation. When it came to Alan Adler, CEO of Cases By Source, Inc., he was very honest. He said that, when he read the meeting notice and saw that the subject matter was going to focus on preparing for a media interview, his immediate reaction was that it would not be applicable to him. He had read my background, and thought that – since he didn’t have to worry in his business about the possibilities of “fire/spill/explosion” as do many of my friends in the chemical industry – he would not find much of the presentation to be appropriate for his needs. However, by the end of the session, he was convinced that being prepared for the day when something bad happens WAS something to which he and his colleagues needed to give some thought. “A regulatory fine or violence in the workplace ARE things we need to think about and prepare for.”

It was at that point that a fellow Vistage member piped up with, “Yeah, we can’t be caught naked!” This great “sound bite” was offered by Dick Siegel, the long-time CEO of SOS Fuels, a home heating oil and petroleum wholesale company. He could offer this insight based on his many years of experience running his company where he has had to deal with truck accidents, a delivery of fuel oil to the basement of a home that no longer had a fuel oil tank, and a ruinous flooding of his business some years ago.

At this point, the others chimed in with various thoughts about how they now realize how vital it is to prepare ahead of time so you can be proactive in the face of a crisis, provide a quick response, and maintain the credibility of your organization and yourself. When Phil asked them what they were going to do when they went back to their offices as a result of our meeting, some of the answers were that they were going to (1) move right away to appoint a designated spokesperson; (2) set up a crisis management team; and (3) start doing some of the planning I had suggested to help them be able to react more effectively if and when a crisis were to hit.

It warmed the cockles of my heart (as my 91-year old mother is fond of saying). Nothing makes me feel better than to know that people have moved forward — after they hear me speak or read my book – to do things that will help position them to be viewed more favorably when they are faced with a tough situation and the possibility of negative headlines. If they are better prepared to act quickly, respond responsibly, and communicate effectively to their concerned audiences, then my job has been done.

So let me ask you…

* Have you developed you’re your written crisis communications plan? (If you don’t know what that looks like, review page 20 of my book or ask me for a copy of a simple template to get you started creating your plan.)
* Have you appointed those who will be spokespersons (and their back-ups)?
* Have you notified those who will function as members of a Crisis Management Team (might be different people on various types of crises)?
* Have you double-checked that you have their most recent contact information?
* Have you brought in someone to train the spokespersons and the Crisis Management Team in their roles and responsibility? Has that person put you all through your paces with some realistic role-playing?
* If you’ve had that training (within the past 2-3 years ago at the most), have you – within the past six months – put on a mock crisis to test them in what they would do and say if a particular type of crisis erupted? (If you’ve run out of ideas of things that could go wrong, just ask me! I have a list of three dozen or more types of things that could happen to most organizations.)
* Have you developed and nurtured relationships with those who could serve as powerful resources when you respond to a crisis (e.g., local emergency responders, elected officials in your community, members of the media who cover your “beat” and potential third parties who could provide valuable, objective information about your company or your industry)?
* Have you had frank conversations with your in-house lawyers or your outside counsel so you would be on the same page when you work together to develop your initial statements about the incident?

If you can honestly say “yes” to all of the above, you are to be commended! If you see a gap in any of these areas, please do move forward to shore up that area of weakness before you are faced with the stark reality of a crisis.

On that inevitable day when something does go wrong – whether through a mistake on your part (or that of someone in your organization) or through your having to react to a situation that has occurred to someone else in your industry or through no fault of your own – you’ll be glad that you weren’t “caught naked.”

‘Til next month…KEEP COOL!

Copyright (C) 2006 JCH Enterprises