Category Archives: Communicating in a crisis

Foul! Setting restrictive rules for the media plays a dangerous game

Communicating in a crisis, Working with the media

Whether you love the beautiful game, or think the goal posts in your local park are there simply for the convenience of dog walkers and their piddling pooches, football often provides a useful source of case studies for good and bad media management.

Here, in my view, is a particularly bad case of media management:

It’s my ball and I won’t play
The Carlos Tevez affair – and for those who don’t follow the game, ‘famous footballer refuses to take off tracksuit and play football’ sums it up quite neatly – threw up an interesting press conference where Manchester City’s Head of Communications apparently announced that any questions surrounding Tevez would immediately end the press conference.

What do Man City think will happen if they refuse to take questions about Tevez at a press conference? That journalists will simply shrug their shoulders and write about Mancini’s (the manager) terrific hair; or whether they’ll line up a 4:3:3 formation at the next home game.

Of course they won’t. And this piece in the Guardian sums up a journalist’s attitude very well to this piece of heavy handed media dealing http://bit.ly/rbXrpf

Don’t duck the issue
As ever, don’t duck the issue. If there are legal reasons why a particular matter can’t be discussed, employment contracts for instance, then say so when asked the question. But to simply refuse to ask questions about the hottest issue of the day seems to me to belong to an era of media management that should have long since disappeared.

Publish and be damned

Communicating in a crisis, Working with the media

It’s early days with this story, but you have to admire Louise Mensch’s (MP) method of dealing with questions from an investigative journalist.  

Faced with an email alleging details of taking drugs and other misdemeanours in a previous career, she has simply admitted them and published the correspondence for all to see  – the journalist must really hate her.

As ever, if you‘ve nothing to hide, transparency is everything and if you have something to hide, transparency is even more important. It will come out in the end so you might as well control the when and the where.

Trusting your instincts

Communicating in a crisis, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees

A good take on the Murdoch phone hacking saga today in the Guardian http://bit.ly/oTq5Zp. Deborah Orr discusses the ‘working towards the Führer’ analogy put forward by historian Ian Kershaw, where basically Hitler’s advisers would implement policy according to what they thought were Hitler’s wishes – a sort of please him at all cost approach even if the overall circumstances favoured a different tack.

It is an extreme comparison of course, as Orr says, but how far did/does this type of culture seep through the News Corp culture?

For the communications team in a corporate environment, the Chairman/CEO are big stakeholders in what goes out and, rightly so, often have a big influence in those communications. The dilemma however is when communication is shaped against the better judgement of the comms team because they know what their Chairman/CEO is expecting to see.

Managing that interaction is difficult, but for a comms manager, not losing sight of the bigger picture and trusting your comms instincts should override any other consideration.

The truth will out

Communicating in a crisis, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees

The recent storm over the use of super injunctions in the UK, much used, it seems, by celebs desperately trying to mask a marital indiscretion or two, has opened up a whole debate on what should, or should not be published in the public interest. I think the issue at the heart of this though, and a good lesson for anyone involved in the world of communications, is the trouble that awaits when the desire to cover something up overshadows the need to communicate openly.

No secrets
The old saying that the ‘truth will out’ has never held as much currency as it does in today’s social media era. What price a super injunction when @tellitlikeitis on Twitter can broadcast the news; seemingly impervious to the legal blows of the judge’s gavel?

Tell it like it is
Whether you’re dealing with the media or communicating company news to employees, obfuscate at your peril. Tell it like it is; people from all sides will respect and admire your refreshing honesty. And even if they don’t, just think of the legal fees you’ll save on super injunctions.

Putting the brakes on a crisis….

Communicating in a crisis

Does an issue become a crisis when everyone finds out about it? That might be the question Toyota executives are asking themselves as their ability to put the brakes on both their cars and the runaway damage to their reputation is called into question.

Now, I know I’m not the only one (unfortunately for Toyota) to harp on about their problems, but the lesson here it would seem is about identifying those issues in a business that have the potential to become a crisis at some point in the future. Effective crisis management is not simply about dealing with a crisis once the media is baying at the door of your company HQ – crisis planning should have happened long before any crisis breaks out.

That said, what to do then when the issue does finally sashay down the catwalk in its full crisis wardrobe and the traditional media, ably supported by their online cohorts, Twitter, Facebook, You Tube et al, line up to unleash their collective ire on your company’s brand?

The tactics may change but the strategy doesn’t
Given the speed of the new media world, the tactics of crisis management have changed but the strategy hasn’t. Never underestimate the power of quick and decisive action and a simple hands up, we made a mistake. There will be pain in the short term, but we’re all human and mistakes happen. Many of us are prepared to forgive mistakes but not many forgive a lack of honesty at the outset and a failure to act and be decisive.

The instinct to try and cover up bad news is very strong; ask a lawyer, or even an ostrich, but all the evading tactics won’t do anything to save the long term damage to your brand and may well simply make it worse.

Honesty is the best policy
David Letterman (he of US Late Show fame) may be the best recent example. Held to ransom by a blackmailer threatening to release news of Letterman’s indiscretions, he fronts up and admits it all, live on air. What could be more honest and candid than that? It doesn’t absolve him from any indiscretion, but it wins him many people’s respect and gives him a much better chance of rescuing a battered reputation.