Crisis Communications: The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message - Hardcover

Fink, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071799214 ISBN 13: 9780071799218

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2013

Synopsis

The Definitive Guide to Communicating in Any Crisis

“When facing an already difficult crisis, the last thing a company needs is to make it worse through its own communications – or lack thereof. As one who has lived through a number of [business] crises and served as an independent investigator of the crises of others, I consider Steven Fink’s book to be an excellent guide to avoiding collecting scar tissue of your own by learning from the scar tissue painfully collected by others.”―Norman R. Augustine, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lockheed Martin

There are few guarantees in business today. Unfortunately, one of them is the inevitability of a crisis having a potentially major effect on your business and your reputation. When your company finds itself in the midst of a crisis, the ripple effects can disrupt lives and business for the foreseeable future if public opinion is not properly shaped and managed.

Skillfully managing the perception of the crisis determines the difference between a company’s life or death. Because in the pitched battle between perception and reality, perception always wins.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Crisis communications and crisis management legend Steven Fink gives you everything you need to prepare for the inevitable―whether it’s in the form of human error, industrial accidents, criminal behavior, or natural disasters.

In this groundbreaking guide, Fink provides a complete toolkit for ensuring smooth communications and lasting business success through any crisis. Crisis Communications offers proactive and preventive methods for preempting potential crises. The book reveals proven strategies for recognizing and averting damaging crisis communications issues before it’s too late. The book also offers ways to deal with mainstream and social media, use them to your advantage, and neutralize and turn around a hostile media environment Steven Fink uses his decades of expertise and experience in crisis communications to help you:

• UNDERSTAND AND MANAGE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC
• PERCEPTION AND REALITY
• CHOOSE THE BEST SPOKESPERSON FOR THE CRISIS
• PROTECT YOUR BRAND AND REPUTATION THROUGH CRISES LARGE AND SMALL
• MAKE WISE, VIGILANT, AND DEFENSIBLE DECISIONS UNDER EXTREME CRISIS-INDUCED STRESS
• TELL THE TRUTH NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING IT MAY BE TO MISLEAD
• USE SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT A CRISIS

The explosion of the Internet and, especially, social media, has added a new layer to the business leader’s skill set: the ability to handle a crisis quickly and professionally within moments of its occurrence. Livelihoods depend upon it.

With in-depth case studies of Toyota, BP, and Penn State, Crisis Communications provides everything you need to successfully lead your company through today’s rocky landscape of business―where crises large and small loom around every corner, and the lives of businesses and management teams hang in the balance.

PRAISE FOR STEVEN FINK’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT
“Every major executive in America ought to read at least one book on crisis management. In this way, he or she might be better prepared to deal with the disasters striking organizations at an ever-increasing rate ... The question is: ‘Is Steven Fink’s book one that busy executives ought to read?’ The answer is a resounding yes.”―LOS ANGELES TIMES, FRONT PAGE SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

About this title

About the Author

Steven Fink is the President and founder of Lexicon Communications Corp. (CrisisManagement.com), the nation’s oldest and most experienced crisis management and crisis communications firm. In addition, he authored the bestselling Crisis Management, the first book ever written on the subject.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Crisis Communications

The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message

By Steven Fink

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright ©2013 Steven Fink
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-179921-8

Contents

Preface
1. You Can't Make This Stuff Up
2. Defining Our Terms
3. What BP Should Have Said
4. Attitude Adjustments
5. Toyota: On a Slippery Crisis Communications Slope with No Brakes
6. Understanding Your Crisis
7. Shaping Your Crisis Communications Message
8. Spokespersons
9. Social Media and Digital Communications—or, Truth/Lies at the Speed of 
Light
10. Shakespeare Was Right: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the 
lawyers."
11. Protecting Your Brand
12. Telling the Truth
13. Say It Ain't So, Joe!—The Penn State Crisis
14. Dealing with Death: Fatality Communications
15. Crisis Communications Strategies
16. The Good, the Bad, the News Media—or, Juggling Chain Saws
17. Senior Management: Your Own Worst Enemy?
18. Take Your Own Pulse—or, What Were They Thinking?
19. Internal Crisis Communications
20. External Crisis Communications
21. Reputation Management and Reservoirs of Goodwill
22. Issues Management
23. Crisis Communications for Publicly Traded Companies
24. Crisis Litigation
25. How to Break Bad News
26. The Blame Game
27. Crisis-Induced Stress
28. Making Defensible Decisions: Decision Making Under Crisis-Induced 
Stress
29. Apologies: Shakespeare—Still Right After All These Years
30. Crisis Advertising: Does It Work?
31. Crisis Communications Plans
32. The Failure of Business Schools
33. Speed Is of the Essence
34. Rising to the Occasion
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

You Can't MakeThis Stuff Up

"I'd like my life back."

With those five whiny words at the height of one of the planet's worstenvironmental crises, one of the world's most successful CEOs cracked publiclyunder the strain of crisis-induced stress. That pathetic plaint forever sealedhis reputation as a seemingly unfeeling, gaffe-prone dunderhead whose glamorous,jet-setting lifestyle was inconvenienced by the tragic loss of 11 lives during amassive oil rig explosion, the resulting runaway oil spill in the Gulf ofMexico, and the heartbreaking loss of livelihoods for countless thousands ofarea families—all caused by his company, his minions, and their combinedsins. That one ill-chosen utterance, in full view of the world's media, at oncethrust former BP head Tony Hayward into the pantheon of such other insensitive,kindred luminaries as Marie ("Let them eat cake") Antoinette and Emperor ("Handme my fiddle") Nero. Did Hayward fiddle as the Gulf of Mexico was engulfed inoil and flames? In a manner of speaking: he went sailing on his luxury yachthalf a world away, while the ashes of his self-immolated image were blown out tosea.

What kind of crisis communications message was Hayward intending to convey tothe world? How does such a successful and accomplished executive crumble socompletely on the world stage of a megacrisis? Was it ineptitude, fear, or lackof crisis communications training that allowed him to turn a worldwide crisisinto a "What about me?" moment?

But Hayward—a complete novice in the art of crisiscommunications—was on a roll and was only just getting started. In fact,it was nearly impossible to stop him. He later "guesstimated" publicly that thespill was averaging a mere 5,000 barrels a day ("A guesstimate is aguesstimate," he truculently sniveled in the face of demands for more accuratenumbers) when the actual number was closer to 60,000 barrels a day, and hefurther pooh-poohed the environmental impact of the soon to be millions ofbarrels of oil awash in the Gulf as "very, very modest." He also predicted thatthe spill would be "tiny" compared to the size of the ocean, convenientlyoverlooking the fact that prevailing winds and unrelenting tides were drivingthe oil toward previously pristine shores, once-rich fishing areas, family-orientedrecreational beaches, fragile marine and bird sanctuaries, anddelicately balanced ecosystems. When the well was capped for good in August 2010and the flow was permanently stemmed—more than three full and agonizingmonths after the drilling rig explosion—official government figures putthe total spill at nearly five million barrels, or some 200 million gallons,making it the worst offshore oil disaster in U.S. history and completelydwarfing the previous record holder, the Exxon Valdez, which struck a reef inPrince William Sound, Alaska.

"Very, very modest," indeed.

Meanwhile, testifying on live television before a congressional investigativecommittee, Hayward responded petulantly to a U.S. representative who wanted toknow what happened at the explosion of the deepwater oil-drilling platform,saying, "I don't know; I wasn't there."

In response to direct congressional questions seeking more information and lessobfuscation, his testimony included such cover-your-ass gems as, "I'm not adrilling engineer" or "actually qualified" in these matters, "I'm not a cementengineer," and "I'm not an oceanographic scientist." It was becoming all tooclear that Hayward was not a lot of things, including a competent crisiscommunicator. For someone who had served for years as head of oil explorationand production at BP before ultimately becoming CEO, Hayward went out of his wayto portray himself as ignorant of any aspect of drilling operations. He eventestified before a disbelieving Congress that he had "no prior knowledge of thedrilling of this well, none whatsoever."

But an angry Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy andCommerce Committee, accused Hayward of blatant "stonewalling" and charged, "Youhave consistently ducked and evaded our questions."

But even feigned ignorance is no excuse. If you're the CEO, you're paid to know.And in Hayward's case, he was paid plenty.

As a contributory consequence of all of the foregoing missteps, the stock valueof BP, then the world's fourth-largest company, soon plummeted into an abyssdeeper than its Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling rig. The beleaguered company lost$17 billion just in the second quarter of 2010, on top of the more than $32billion it was forced to set aside for spill-related costs. At one point, BP'smarket value declined 40 percent and the company was forced to sell off valuableassets to help pay its mounting costs.

The passage of time hasn't helped the oil giant recover: in the second quarterof 2012, BP reported an additional loss of $1.4 billion. A drop in the oil-slick ocean to a deep-pocket company like BP, maybe, but a disturbing trendindicating perhaps a deeper crisis.

But the silver lining for Mr. Hayward was that his fervent wish ultimately wasgranted: he got his life back. His board of directors removed him from office ...although he was exiled to Russia.

Seriously.

The only relevant question was: what took them so long?

Even as he was exiting the oil-slick stage, the unrepentant Hayward still didn'tknow when to shut up, publicly bellyaching in a farewell interview with the WallStreet Journal, "I became a villain for doing the right thing."

Shortly thereafter, upon the completion of the company's own internalinvestigation, he led an official corporate chorus of finger-pointing at othercompanies involved in the construction and maintenance of the rig. BP, by nowthe consummate poster child for failed crisis communications, fared littlebetter in its corporate doublespeak, calling the accident "a complex andinterlinked series of mechanical failures, human judgments, engineering design,operational implementation and team interfaces."

But not our fault.

Then, in a sweeping settlement agreement with the U.S. government toward the endof 2012, BP agreed to pay a $4.5 billion fine, pleaded guilty to 11 felonycounts related to the deaths of the workers on the oil rig, and pleaded guiltyto one additional count of obstruction of Congress.

Let's be clear: effective crisis communications would not have stemmed the flowof oil or cash, but it would have saved the company's image, its stock value,and its CEO and helped it survive this crisis with its reputation intact. Poorcrisis management and even worse crisis communications have left the companyreviled around the world and facing a mountain of litigation and cleanup coststhat will take years and years and billions and billions of dollars to overcome.

Rehabilitating its badly tarnished image will take much longer.

The long, sorrowful travails of BP (formerly British Petroleum) are by now wellknown throughout the world. What is neither well known nor well understood ishow such a successful company could have self-imploded on such a grand andpublic scale. No, I am not referring to the company's oil-rig disaster; I amtalking about its total meltdown in its woeful crisis communications efforts. Anarmy of skilled surgeons would not have been able to cure its epidemic outbreakof nonstop foot-in-mouth disease, led by its feckless leader. It is permissibleto ask without sounding snarky: seriously, what was he thinking, and why didn'tanyone stop him?

Is this critique an unfair and undeserved "bashing" of a hapless businessleader? Not at all. In today's instant, 24/7 news media paradigm, it isindefensible and inexcusable that BP unleashed on the world such a loose andwoefully unprepared cannon as Tony Hayward. Businesses and the men and women whorun them have a fiduciary responsibility to be well versed and well trained incrisis management and crisis communications (see Chapter 32, "The Failure ofBusiness Schools," for more on this), especially since public images and stockprices rise and fall on such utterances and the perceptions they engender. It isalmost inconceivable that Hayward had received no instruction in crisiscommunications during his corporate climb to the top of BP's ladder, which makeshis unfortunate display all the more puzzling. At a minimum, had he learnednothing from watching scores of other companies in crises over the years? Ascorecard was needed to tell which was gushing more, the well or his mouth.

Which begs the ultimate question: is Tony Hayward the sort of unfeeling,uncaring, pompous, arrogant jerk he appeared to be on any number of occasions?Going out on a limb here, I'd say: probably not. How is it possible, then, thatthis previously proven leader of such a successful behemoth of a company couldmisspeak so often and so publicly, and in ways that would heap shame, ridicule,and public scorn on himself and the company he once led, resulting in asignificant loss in personal and company prestige, credibility, and marketvalue? Leaders like Hayward spend a lifetime in stressful business situations.What is it about sudden, unexpected, and public stress—such as that whichis almost always associated with a crisis—that causes the wheels to falloff many companies' communications wagon? Do they choke, and if so, why?

Moreover, what are the critical lessons that managers today need to know inorder to survive the ever-taxing gantlet of crisis communications challenges?Every time a company undergoes a public crisis that is widely reported in themedia, prudent company managers and executives should put themselves in thepicture and ask: How would I do in a similar situation? How would our companyrespond? Would we have done better? More pointedly, if a guy like Hayward and acompany with the resources of BP can screw up their crisis communications sobadly, what chance do I have?

The lessons in this book are designed to give you an excellent chance.

When you see some business leader making questionable—if notmoronic—public pronouncements under the very real stress of a crisis, askyourself what he's doing wrong and how you would handle it differently. Thisbook will tell you, by word and by example, how crisis communications should behandled in order to survive all manner of crises, but it's a good learningexercise to second-guess the decisions and the public pronouncements of those inthe crucible while safely ensconced at home in your den. After all, when it'syour crisis, others will be judging you just as harshly.

In Chapter 3, we'll explore what Tony Hayward should have said—animportant alternative for you to keep in mind when it's your crisis.

CHAPTER 2

Defining Our Terms

First, though, let's define our terms.

People used to say that all the time; sadly, most don't these days, and we as acommunity are the poorer for it. A lack of up-front agreement on what a givendiscussion is about leads to ambiguities, confusion, and, at times,dissension—all of which I hope to avoid in this book, and you mostassuredly want to avoid in dealing with a crisis.

For example, crisis management is not synonymous with crisis communications, andvice versa, even though far too many people use the terms interchangeably,sometimes with tragic results. There is a distinct and important differencebetween the two, and knowing that difference can be a lifesaver. More on thislater.

So, let's define our terms:

A crisis is a fluid and dynamic state of affairs containing equal parts dangerand opportunity. It is a turning point, for better or worse. The Chinese have aword for this: wei-ji.

Crisis management deals with the reality of the crisis. It is the actualmanagement of the precarious situation that is rapidly unfolding. It is makingswift and vigilant decisions, gathering resources, marshaling troops, and so on,sometimes under great stress and enormous time constraints, to resolve apressing problem. It is (hopefully) gaining the upper hand over an event thatcould potentially cause great or greater harm to a company, its various publics,its employees, its stakeholders, and its bottom line. It is preventing thesituation from escalating. It is, in short, the reality of what's goingon—the actual management of the drama—often behind the scenes andfar from public view. It is the steps taken by the crisis management team thatwill determine the ultimate outcome of the crisis.

Crisis communications is managing the perception of that same reality. It istelling the public what is going on (or what you want the public to know aboutwhat is going on). It is shaping public opinion.

Thus, crisis management deals with managing reality; crisis communications dealswith shaping perception.

While this book will address both crisis management and crisis communications,its focus will be on the latter—shaping critical perceptions and opinionsduring a crisis. If a crisis is being managed well, the goal of effective crisiscommunications is to form the public's perception to match the reality. If thecrisis is not being managed well, different strategies are required, which willbe discussed.

It's the difference between being a thermostat and a thermometer. As Princeton'sCornel West once put it, "A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; athermometer just reflects it." The thermostat of crisis communications, whendone right, is transformative.

Ironically, after the BP well finally was capped, retired U.S. Coast GuardAdmiral Thad Allen, who belatedly was put in charge of overseeing the crisis inthe Gulf, summed up BP's efforts this way: "At the wellhead, I think they'vedone very well. What they are not good at ... is one-on-one transactions withindividual citizens. And I think that's where the biggest gap in performance hasbeen and where the most improvement needs to take place."

In short, even though BP, in Admiral Allen's professional assessment, may havebeen doing everything that was technologically possible to stem the oil flow andmanage the reality of the crisis, the company failed miserably at its lameattempts at crisis communications, and that cost the company dearly. Because asessential as good crisis management is, in the end, crisiscommunications—or the lack thereof—is all the public remembers.

It is an immutable law that in the pitched battle between perception andreality, perception always wins.

THE ROLE OF PERCEPTION IN CRISIS PLANNING

The majority of our discussion is about using effective crisis communicationsstrategies to generate positive perceptions of your company when it is in acrisis. But it is worth noting that some have examined the role that seniormanagement's perception of the crisis plays in how the actual crisis is managed.

"The perception of crises may ultimately affect crisis outcomes," writesbusiness communications professor John M. Penrose of San Diego State University.He believes that if the likely outcome of a crisis is positive and morecontrollable, the company is likely to include more team members in theresolution process, which will generate an increased of number of ideas andviable alternative options.

"On the other hand, the perceiving of a crisis as a threat will cause managersto limit the amount of information they consider," he writes. "Thus, perceptionhas the potential to influence the extent to which an organization is willing toengage in crisis management activities."

This seems to fit the classic definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy, andPenrose admits that more study is needed.

The fact remains that virtually any crisis, as stated earlier, may turn outeither positive or negative. But since you don't know at the outset which itwill be, it is incumbent upon prudent managers to devote all appropriateresources and consider all possible alternatives early so that a positiveoutcome is given a fair chance of prevailing.

Also, Penrose is in agreement with our overarching theme, "Crises can destroy acompany's reputation in a concentrated time frame."

Just ask BP.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Crisis Communications by Steven Fink. Copyright © 2013 by Steven Fink. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071799214
• ISBN 13: 9780071799218
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336