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I’m frustrated by the continued failure by schools and colleges to communicate well during a crisis.
Rather than adding thoughts here, please visit http://blog.schoolcrisisplan.com/?p=95
Lance Armstrong’s denial of doping over the years provides a valuable crisis communications and public relations case study for analyzing denial by powerful people and how they communicate in a crisis.
This is important for two reasons:
1) Public relations people may give excellent advice and professional council, but be rebuffed by their corporate leaders.
2) Corporate leaders may be blinded by the view from their high perch and ignore the wise council of their public relations professionals.
Lance Armstrong appears to have shifted from a position of denial to a position of doing his duty and coming clean.
Denial is also a critical marker in crisis communications, especially in a smoldering crisis. Penn State is a perfect example of an entire institution where the leaders were in denial.
As a rule, the longer you remain in denial, the more you cause monetary and reputational harm to the institutions with which you are associated.
Lance Armstrong has harmed his Livestrong Charity, his sponsors and his businesses. (PR Daily, CNN)
This is true for denial at Penn State and many other organizations with allegations of child sexual abuse being swept under the rug.
PR people – When you see denial, urge the leader to come clean. If they don’t come clean and follow your advice, then it is time for you to polish your resume and find a job where you are respected for your advice and where the leaders have higher ethics
Leaders – When your public relations team tells you that the best thing to do is to come clean, please humble yourself to take their advice.
Here are a few important leadership lessons.
In every crisis I have witnessed and in every case study I have analyzed, individuals in leadership positions follow distinctive, easy to identify patterns that foreshadow their future success or failure.
• Some leaders do their duty, while others are in denial.
• Some take action, while others are arrogant.
If a leader does their duty and takes action, then their constituents (employees, stakeholders, etc.) will be responsible and remain loyal. However, when the person in the leadership position is in denial and is arrogant, their constituents blame everyone for the failings that occur, and the individual in denial and showing arrogance also blames everyone for his or her failings. (In the case of Lance Armstrong, he has spent years blaming his accusers.)
Remember this:
The best way to exhibit leadership in a crisis is to plan ahead on a clear sunny day, starting with a three-plan approach including a crisis communications plan, an incident command plan and business continuity plan. Armstrong makes a perfect example for this three-plan approach because he is a leader and CEO who is continuously in the media, he is a brand, and he runs a business. Most organizations and leaders are up to date on their incident command and business continuity plans, but most fail to plan for speaking to the media, employees, and other key audiences.
My crisis communications plans usually have 100 or more pre-written and pre-approved templates, each containing the words a leader would
use to communicate when “it” hits the fan, especially during the early hours of a crisis when emotions and anxiety are high.
As new issues arise, a document must be created for these new issues. This is especially true of smoldering issues, such as allegations harmful to the brand. Having the proper statement depends upon the leader telling the truth and not being in denial.
The best time to write such templates is on a clear sunny day and the worst time to write and formulate your words is in the throes of a crisis.
Managing a business and making money are too often the characteristics executives consider the mark of a good leader.
In my world, a leader is someone who uses effective communications in critical times to get their audience and themselves through what may be our darkest hours, so we can emerge into a bright new day.
Feel free to download this PDF and share it with your fellow leaders and PR teams.
One Month After Sandy Hook Elementary: Effective Crisis Communications In Critical Times
(Free conference call – Listen on Demand REGISTRATION IS FREE TO ALL)
[Editor’s Note: I recall the morning I received a frantic call from my daughter when there was a shooting on her campus. The school failed on a grand scale to achieve effective communications and failed at crisis communication. I hope this article and telecast will provide food for thought that leads to real change at schools and businesses.]
The tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut will raise many questions about school safety and gun control. What will it not do? The Sandy Hook shooting will likely not raise any discussions about effective crisis communications, although it should.
As television viewers, we see the coverage, but most people don’t realize that such a crisis immediately brings 500 media outlets and approximately 2,500 people to your town and to your front door, all with questions they want you to answer now.
Why no attention to communications? Schools will review emergency procedures. School safety consultants will call for more security measures. Companies that sell school text messaging systems will be in full sales mode. But few if any schools or school systems will do anything to prepare for the day when they might have to communicate with parents and the media about a tragedy at their own school.
The sad reality is that school shootings and workplace violence happens all too often. If you are the leader of a school or company, or the designated spokesperson, examine whether you are prepared to flawlessly and effectively communicate amid chaos, trauma and grief. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine if you had a personal relationship with any of these victims. Now imagine trying to talk with parents or loved ones to break the bad news, then respond to hundreds of media calls, while dealing with your own personal grief.
The worst time to deal with crisis communications is during the crisis. The best time to address all of these issues is on a clear sunny day.
As it relates to tragic shootings in schools, be aware of these realities:
• A text messaging system is not the same as a Crisis Communications Plan. A text messaging system is only a notification system. Your text messaging system may save lives on a college campus when you can warn students to take cover from an active shooter. But when those texts are going to parents, a text sent too soon will lead to panic with potentially thousands of parents attempting to reach the school. This traffic jam then keeps emergency responders from reaching the scene. A text messaging system is notification; it is not communications.
• If you are unfortunate enough to experience a shooting at your school or workplace, you can be assured the media will be on the scene in greater numbers and nearly as quickly as emergency responders. You have an obligation to speak to them within one hour of the onset of the crisis, regardless of how tragic and personal the event is. For that reason, on a clear sunny day you should write the statements you will say to the media, parents, employees or any other stakeholders. You must successfully use three types of sentences in such a pre-written statement, which would include 1) fill in the blank statements, 2) multiple choice statements, and 3) declarative statements that are true today and will still be true on the day of the crisis. I’ve successfully used this system in every Crisis Communications Plan I’ve ever written. On the day of your crisis, your template can be customized for release within 10 minutes. This message should then be shared simultaneously with all audiences, including communications to the media, e-mail, the web, social media, employee meetings and with all stakeholders. No audience should be told anything that is not told to all audiences.
• Denial and ignorance are the greatest evils that keep organizations from writing an effective Crisis Communications Plans. Denial means many will never take this step because they don’t believe they will fall victim to such a tragedy, although they may spend money for all sorts of security measures and text messaging systems. Ignorance means they simply think that having a text messaging system, a public address system and a plan for a fire drill are enough. You will forever be judged by your ability to communicate effectively.
• Do not summarily dismiss your responsibility to communicate and defer all communications to law enforcement. Some law enforcement officials are effective communicators and some are shamefully bad. Furthermore, their comments should only be about the crime, crime scene and the investigation. Your job is to communicate on behalf of your institution. Your job is to be the face and voice of comfort to those you know so well and with whom you share a bond and grief.
• Leaders will quickly second guess every decision and every word during a crisis. That is why all communications decisions and all words that will be spoken should be determined on a clear sunny day. Most Crisis Communications Plans state only vague policy and procedures without definitive timetables or job assignments. Most Crisis Communications Plans fail to have a bountiful addendum of pre-written statements and news releases. By my standards, if I can identify 100 potential crisis scenarios, then on a clear sunny day, I can and will write 100 pre-written and pre-approved news release templates.
• Stay in close touch with members of your Crisis Management Team. Each team member is running their own team, be it emergency response and incident command or communications. Meeting in person is best, but you should never delay meeting because you are not all physically present. Opt to use conference call technology to hold virtual meetings when necessary.
• The perfect Crisis Communications Plan should outline in great detail every decision that must be made in order to effectively communicate. The plan must be written in chronological order so that in one hour or less you can successfully gather all of the facts known at that time, confer with fellow decision makers, then issue your first statement to the media and all other stakeholders. Your plan must be so perfect and thorough that no steps are left out, yet easy enough to execute that in the worse case scenario, it can be effectively executed even by an untrained communicator.
• Many leaders fail to communicate in a timely manner because they are waiting for all of the facts to be known before they say anything. This is a bad strategy. Speaking early helps eliminate rumors and helps to gain the public’s trust. It is better to communicate a little than to say nothing. You need two types of pre-written statements. The first statement gives only the most basic information and is void of many of the hard facts, which are usually not yet known in the first hour of a crisis. In my plans, this is known as the First Critical Statement. Some organizations call these holding statements.
Such a fill-in-the-blank statement should acknowledge to the world and the media that the event has happened and that you are gathering more information which you will share within the second hour of your crisis.
The second hour statement is a more detailed statement that fills in the blanks to many of the facts that were not given in your First Critical Statement. This statement should be written on a clear sunny day, when you are not under emotional distress. This is the type of statement I referenced above. To achieve this you must successfully use three types of sentences in such a pre-written statement, which would include 1) fill in the blank statements, 2) multiple choice statements, and 3) declarative statements that are true today and will still be true on the day of the crisis.
• Communicate quickly, especially in a college or high school situation where an active shooter is present. During the Virginia Tech shooting, the university had a woefully inadequate Crisis Communications Plan, which is sadly still used by an enormous number of universities. Furthermore, when the first two students were killed, school officials were slow to communicate. Two hours after the initial shooting, the gunman shot 30 more people. The university, meanwhile, had still not communicated the events and dangers from the initial event. In addition to the sad deaths of 32 people, extensive fines and court damages have been levied against Virginia Tech for their failure to adequately issue communications that could have saved lives.
• Never get frustrated because you think reporters are asking stupid questions during a news conference. The questions get dumber when you fail to communicate quickly. On a clear sunny day you can actually make a list of all of the questions you think you might get asked by reporters in any given crisis event. Once you have written all of these potential questions, you can effectively write news release templates that will sequentially answer each anticipated question, beginning with who, what, when, where, why and how. You can also successfully write answers that deflect speculative questions, which are the specific questions that so many spokespeople and law enforcement officers consider to be stupid. I can promise you are going to be asked, “why do you think this happened.” You also know that in the early stages of the crisis you will not know the answer. But don’t get frustrated and angry. On a clear sunny day write a benign answer and have it ready in your news release templates. All of my pre-written statements contain this phrase: “One cannot speculate on why a violent individual would commit such an act. We will have to wait for our investigation to tell us that.”
• When you have your emergency drills, enhance those drills by including mock media and mock news conferences, complete with video cameras. Never use real media for these drills. During your drill you can test your skills, your Crisis Communications Plan and your pre-written statements all on the same day.
• Social media in such a crisis may do more harm than good. As a communications vehicle, social media is a tool and it should never be substituted for talking to the media, talking to employees, posting to the web and communicating to stakeholders via e-mail. All of these tried and true techniques should be used before Facebook and Twitter. YouTube should be your first social media option, followed by links on Facebook and Twitter to your primary website and your YouTube videos. My experience and research shows that Twitter is especially problematic, because well meaning, yet ill informed people, will re-tweet old tweets as though the shooting is still under way, causing undue panic. Once a shooting is over you must tweet an all clear message repeatedly for several hours, complete with links to your primary website where you must post the latest information.
• Do not delay in writing your Crisis Communications Plan. Twice this year I was contacted by organizations that wanted to write their Crisis Communications Plan “within the next 6 months.” Both had shooting fatalities in the workplace before they “ever got around” to writing their plan. One experienced a triple shooting with a double murder and suicide within 12 hours of calling me.
Please realize that the question should not be if you should have a Crisis Communications Plan, but how soon can you have one. Every organization must be prepared to effectively communicate in critical times.
About the author: Gerard Braud is known as the guy to call “When ‘It’ Hits the Fan.” He is an expert in writing Crisis Communications Plan and Media Training, and has practiced his craft on five continents. He has developed a unique workshop that allows multiple organizations to write and complete an entire Crisis Communications Plan in just 2 days, using his proprietary message writing system. You can reach him at gerard@braudcommunications.com www.braudcommunications.com www.crisiscommunicationsplans.com
Amid the heartbreak of every tragic shooting we always hear, “No one every thought it would happen here.” The “never happen here” attitude creates huge problems, leaving schools, businesses and communities unprepared – whether it is a tragic shooting at a school, a theater, a mall or your workplace.
It is heart breaking to have to address these concerns during this holiday season, but such is the reality of our world today.
CommPro.Biz has asked global crisis communication expert Gerard Braud to offer a free conference call and conversation to guide us through the steps every school, community and business should be prepared to take when the unthinkable happens.
http://www.commpro.biz/green-room/the-sandy-hook-tragedy-effective-communications-in-critical-times/
Please share via Twitter, Facebook and e-mail with your child’s school leadership, with community leaders and with leaders in your organization.
In this conversation we will discuss:
• Why this tragedy will lead so many institutions to do absolutely nothing
• Tragic flaws in the conventional wisdom about crisis communications
• Social Media’s upside and downside in a crisis
• Tried and true techniques that everyone must be prepared to undertake
• How leaders fail to lead while throwing up roadblocks
The audio recording and handouts for this event are available for those who missed this webinar. The registration link allows you to purchase the recording from December 6, 2012.
As we exit hurricane season and enter the season of winter storms, it is time to take a fresh look at the reality of crisis communications during a natural disaster. The big challenge in a natural disaster is that sometimes you are the “main event” and other times you are experiencing a serious crisis as part of a much larger crisis. As just one part of a big story, how do you cope with communicating to your core stakeholders and how much do you need to focus on (or ignore) reaching out to the mainstream media.
Our final webinar of the year will focus on:
• How to best use Social Media during a natural disaster crisis
• How to function when electricity is lost
• How to combine technology and Social Media to reach the real media
Free to those with annual Living License agreement for your Crisis Communications Plan.
You’ll also learn the secrets about how Gerard Braud was able to do live broadcast to CNN & The Weather Channel using only an iPhone, more than 3 days after Hurricane Isaac knocked out electricity to his home.
Friday 2 people were murdered, then the killer killed himself. One of the murders, as well as the suicide, was done “in the workplace.” I won’t say where, out of respect for the privacy of the person who called me the day before. All of this happened where he works.
Just 24-hours before, on Thursday, he called asking me to help his organization write a Crisis Communications Plan. He said he’s had my card on his desk for the past 6 years. We met at a Crisis Communications Workshop I had taught in his town.
He had high hopes of scheduling me to fly out to help him this summer. He said conditions were not right to do it before then.
This tragic event is one more reminder that we, in the corporate world, try to plan out everything. We move this because of a certain project and we postpone that because of another deadline.
Have you ever notices that violent people don’t care about your deadlines or projects? Have you noticed that explosions still happen even when you are not ready for them?
The best thing you can do is to set priorities, with clarity as to what is “urgent” and “important” for the long-term health of you, your people and your institution. There are many urgent and important little things that are on our short to-do list that can but put off.
There is no perfect time in your schedule to stop to write a Crisis Communications Plan. The time to commit to it is today. The time to place it on the urgent and important list is today. The worst time to prepare for a crisis and to deal with a crisis is on the day of the crisis. The best time is on a clear sunny day long before the crisis rears its ugly head.
I’ve successfully helped organizations on 5 continents write and complete a full crisis communications plan in as few as 2-days. I have a much longer list of companies who have called, but who could not find 2 days on the schedule to get this done.
We extend our sympathies and prayers to those who are affected.
Be it known to the world that on this day, I, along with my colleagues in the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), begin a test. Because we are all fed up with silly buzzwords, we have decided to introduce our own meaningless phrase into the corporate buzzword conversation. The new buzzword is “Pogo Stick.”
Used in a sentence: “We need to Pogo Stick this idea. We need to bounce it around all of the departments and see what people think.”
If you are of the twisted mindset to join us, please follow these instructions:
1) Use Pogo Stick at your next meeting.
2) Use Pogo Stick at as many meetings as possible.
3) Include Pogo Stick in e-mail conversations.
4) Report back to us when you hear someone else using this foolish phrase.
Follow our conversation on Linked In.
To see all of the buzzwords used at once, watch The World’s Worst Speech on YouTube.