Public Relations

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating A Plan 7

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, Internal Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

If you’ve followed this series through parts one to six, then you’ll know that I’ve promised some examples of real scenarios which (I hope) will illustrate the points I’ve tried to make. At the very least, you’ll be able to decide whether you would have done it better, which may get you thinking. As I’ve said before – this isn’t meant to be the definitive, one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of formulating a crisis management plan – this is the seed and it needs the fertilizer of your thoughts. So here you are – the following example is real, and one I dealt with personally:

2130, Friday night. Call comes in via the company’s main switchboard from one of its restaurants, at which a fatal stabbing has just taken place. The restaurant is in the Liverpool area, the police are on site, a media enquiry has been received and it’s believed a journalist and photographer are en route. The suspected attacker is female, the victim male. The restaurant was roughly a quarter full when the incident occurred, and the manager evacuated those present immediately. Some have left, others remain outside. Six staff are on duty, one was serving the attacker and victim.

Questions? Has the area manager been notified and when will he arrive? Is there any further information available about the incident, the victim or the attacker that might help in formulating a corporate response? How are the emergency services dealing with the incident – they will have closed the restaurant – can they give us any idea of how long it may be closed for? How are the staff members reacting? Have they been reassured and offered support and/or counseling through the company’s HR resource? Was there any apparent trauma or upset amongst other guests – will we have to offer compensation in one form or another? Have the emergency services spoken with the guests who remain? When are the media expected, if they’re not there already?

Actions? Event is in Liverpool, HQ is in London – no member of the corporate communications team can be there within thirty minutes. Call area manager, ensure that a call has been put into the Ops Director, who can escalate upwards to the executive committee or board, as deemed appropriate. Area manager, already media trained, is briefed to handle media enquiries, using text of reserve statement – also liaises with emergency services.

Restaurant manager is briefed that neither he, nor his staff, are to talk to the media. Even if ‘doorstepped’ they are to say nothing more than ‘sorry, I’ve nothing to add’. Name and telephone number of on-call communicator to be supplied to all staff members, for giving to media if necessary. Restaurant manager (alone, not staff) briefed to deal with enquiries from public. Authorised to respond to guest complaints/issue with offer of refunds or discounted meals at other restaurants, plus provide central contact number for owning company, for further issues/complaints. As media will be prevented from accessing restaurant by emergency services, area manager authorised to supply ‘stock’ external restaurant shot – thus presenting premises in best light. Notify HR – HR to speak to individual staff members to offer support/counsel. Notify media monitoring agency to cut for media mentions of incident. Use holding statement, tailored to specific incident, to answer media enquiries. Assure media that, if there is anything further to say, that they will be contacted. Prepare incident report for circulation.

Outcome? Transpired that the attacker was a glamour model, out for dinner with her boyfriend. Following a minor argument, she picked up a steak knife and stabbed him – her aim was quite good, and he died from a single stab wound. Media coverage majored on the incident and the characters involved – no staff were interviewed, no statement was made other than the reserve statement, no spokespeople or employees were named. No other guests were involved, while one or two were interviewed by the media, they had nothing to add and thus did not contribute to the coverage. Staff members were all contacted and offered counselling, none took it up, but all were reassured of the company’s ‘duty of care’. A small minority of guests took the company up on its offer of refunds or discounted meals – this built customer relations. Media coverage limited to local press and brief mention on local radio. Restaurant re-opened after three weeks, with little fanfare – its business was undamaged.

OK – yes this is an isolated incident. Yes – it’s very out of the ordinary. Yes – it might be seen as reasonably straightforward and easy-to-handle. But it might have gone so very horribly wrong – and it didn’t. That’s a result, as far as I’m concerned.

I’ll do another example next time.

PR Week – With Friends Like These………..

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , .

Another week (PR Week, in fact) another nail in the industry’s coffin. OK, it’s more of a thumbtack, really, but the fact is that it’s being pushed inexorably into the pine by the very publication that should be levering the nails out. PR Week describes itself as ‘the industry’s bible’ (stop sniggering at the back, Communicator Minor!) and yet, every week, without fail, it appears to do its level best to suck value out of the industry and hack away at those vestiges of corporate reputation that may remain to it.

A couple of things I’ve said before, and, just to be quite clear, I’ll say them again. As the ‘industry’s bible’ (Matron! The side-stapler!) surely PR Week should be filling its pages with stuff that is both interesting and useful – it should be promoting best practice, nurturing talent and supporting industry education. It should also be aware of the responsibility that comes with being the ‘industry’s bible’ (no, no, stop, please) – a responsibility to portray our profession in the best possible light because, despite its best attempts, people read it. And sometimes – I have to assume – they are people outside of the industry, whose opinions of our profession might actually matter.

So this week (issue dated December 4 2009, probably still on sale somewhere for £7.23, which I believe is this issue’s random and spurious cover price) PR Week lets us all down with a three-page piece about evaluation.

Why has it let us down, I can hear you cry, what’s so wrong with that? Isn’t evaluation one of the hottest topics in the business currently? Isn’t it something that should be debated? Isn’t it something on which we need opinions, and suggestions and solutions? Do we not, as an industry, need an evaluation standard? And, you will ask ( and rightly), is not the ‘industry’s bible’ (etc etc etc) in the best place to address all of this?

Yes, yes and yes thrice more. But no. The Week manages to turn their three page opportunity into a lightweight discussion around whether AVE is good or bad, a bit of a moan about budgets and the suggestion that attitudinal research might be a good thing. No guidance, no solutions, no real debate and – my apologies to those who took part – no real seniority. Where were the industry leaders? And who the hell is Waggener Edstrom?

That would be bad enough, dear blog snorkellers, but it gets worse. This three page flit above the surface of the evaluation issue was accompanied by a picture of the participants in the ‘round table’. Not a very good picture. However, it was a picture of the participants in front of a table. A lunch table, Clearly laid for a three-course lunch, with both red and white wine glasses.

Not really reinforcing the stereotype then, PR Week? Not really confirming the preconceptions?

Anyway, two related questions.

Did no-one think about this when the picture was taken? And why, oh why didn’t someone crop the picture?

In my opinion – and feel free to disagree – I believe this to be negligent and damaging to the reputation of the industry. Such as it is.

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating A Plan 6

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

So there you are, sat in front of the TV of an evening, having just enjoyed your dinner, swirling the last dregs of your fine burgundy ‘round the bottom of the glass when your eye is taken by something on the news. It’s your factory on fire. Or your plane nose down in a field. Or your guests being stretchered out of one of your hotels/restaurants/health clubs. Or a special report from the City. Or any one of the potential nightmares that you’ve spent hours imagining and planning for. And you didn’t know it was happening.

Rewind, quick. OK – there’s you, taking a copy of your crisis management plan, with the contact numbers and the rota lists and – with the blessing (and authority) of the plan’s owner – running a training session with whoever your front line people are. Making sure that they know that, in amongst all the chaos that they might be dealing with, they MUST call you (or a member of your team) and they MUST NOT attempt to deal with external comms themselves.

So there you are, sat in front of the TV of an evening etc etc etc having just taken the ‘phone call that lets you know it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped up at t’mill. What to expect, what to do and what decisions to make?

  • Not all crises are the same and not all require an instant response – and not all are crises. Some are just issues. Which is yours and what do you really need to do? Take some time out to think about it and bear in mind that there are always people who like a nice bit of drama and who will happily create a crisis where there wasn’t one before
  • A product recall, for example, may take some evaluation before it’s actioned. The product may not be dangerous or risky in any way – simply faulty. In this case you’ve got time to think, and the knowledge that no-one’s going to hear about it (if you’re lucky) until you decide to make it public
  • On the other hand, a product recall may be occasioned by truly dangerous products, which pose a danger to life and limb – in which case you’ve got no time at all, and it is going to be a big story, very quickly, over which you will have no control
  • Where is your crisis, supposing it’s serious enough to warrant your presence? Can you get there? Can your team get there? Can your spokesperson/people get there? If not – who are you going to use ‘on the ground’ to champion communications?
  • What has actually happened, and what might happen next? What are your audiences going to need to know? Who needs to know within your organisation? Does the whole organisation need to know?
  • Are there factors outside your control – which change your status from ‘driver’ to ‘passenger’ – these might include terrorism, or Act of God. If so, who do you need to deal with to ensure that you are aligned and ‘on-message’?
  • If there’s a crisis ‘scene’ – who’s there? Have the emergency services, or the media, or the public turned up? Who’s dealing with them, or is it a free-for-all?
  • What’s the potential impact of this – short and long-term? What needs to happen to minimise the impact?

By asking these questions (and others like them) and considering these issues (and other like them) – exercise your own judgement here – you’ll begin to get a picture of what you’re facing, and can start to react.

Next time, no waffle, just real examples.

Corporate Communications – Doing God’s Work 3

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

Those who are regular visitors to this, The Blog That Nobody Reads, will have seen my previous posts – all (snappily, I thought), and for ease of reference, entitled ‘Doing God’s Work’ – which outline my thoughts on the public razing of the corporate reputation of Goldman Sachs which we have witnessed over the past month or so.

And all, it seems, as the result of what can only be seen as a horribly (really horribly) misguided attempt to make the bank more friendly, and its working and remuneration practices more acceptable to the common man. (That’ll be the same common man who has, over the last two years, been right royally shafted by the selfish greed and shortsightedness of – ah yes – bankers.)

Anyway, the received wisdom is that, joke or not, Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, probably shouldn’t have said that he was ‘doing God’s work’. (Come to think of it, it would have been nice if Michael Sherwood, European MD, could have stopped himself saying how fond he is of big boats. But, hey.)

Anyway, if you’ve got some time, here’s something from the January issue of Vanity Fair, showing, I think, quite how far the mighty have fallen.

Yep – Goldman Sucks.

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating A Plan 5

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

Here we are – roughly half-way through this rapid and rather random fly-past of the anatomy of a crisis and how one might plan for same. This is part five which means – oh, but yes, dearest blog snorkellers – another five to go! I promise – on all that I hold sacred, on Roget’s Thesaurus – that the next bits (well, the ones after this) will be more exciting. And practical.

Anyway – this is just a summary of where we find ourselves, and how you might consolidate the work that you’ve done. I’m not going to insult you, so I’ll keep it brief. In no particular order:

1)       Write everything you’ve discovered to date down. This may be stating the obvious, but the obvious is what you’re going to want when the merde hits the aircon. Writing things down allows you to demonstrate to others that things have been thought about and – often more importantly – remind them that they were there when the thinking was going on. (Did I mention that crises are noted for their internal political aspect? No? They are.) All that aside, by now you’ve got lists of potential issues and crises, contingency planning for the more likely or the more serious, statements and Q&A, escalation procedures, rotas and contact lists, places to go and schedules of equipment that you’re going to need. Writing it down will explain to others, and you (at 0500 on a Wednesday, when your memory’s not working), how it all links together

2)       Get examples of all the stuff you’ve put together so far. Put each item in a different plastic folder, label it as an appendix and attach it to the beginnings of a plan you’ve just written down (see point 1). I know, I know – I’m insulting your intelligence. Or am I? Don’t hide this stuff away – everyone who might be involved in a crisis situation should have a copy of it. Whether they like it or not

3)       Store all of this electronically. If you can, if your IT department will let you, if your company is technologically literate enough, if there are enough people able to access it from outside the company – get it all on a server somewhere (possibly password protected) so that those that need to access it when the time comes, actually can

4)       Brief your people. You’ve done quite a lot of work at this stage, and the stuff you’ve been working on – although all a bit navelly-gazely at times – is very important. We’ll get on to internal comms later, but now is the time to do some briefing of your staff. Not everyone needs to know everything, but it doesn’t do anyone – especially in an organisation that might not, how shall we say, have the most robust and open and values-led culture – any harm to be splashed with the fear of God every now and then

Now we’re cooking with gas. One thing I completely forgot to mention specifically, but who knows, you may have got there before me, is the list of the emergency services and the local authorities that you would do well to have in your folder when the time comes.

Next time, we’ll explore what to expect when a crisis actually happens, The we’ll get to internal comms, business continuity, social media and running a trial of your plan.

And until then – keeeeeep panicking!

Social Media – Socialnomics – Please, Make It Go Away

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , .

Help, help – they’re at it again! Them! The social media gurus, the digital numpties, the facebook freaks! The horrible cyber-hippies, with their hessian and their mung beans and their ridiculous belief that if they chant spurious data often enough, one day it might turn out to be true.

Well it isn’t and it won’t. Here’s a new example of social media snake-oil salesmanship, featuring a short fashion show by – ladies and gentlemen – the Emperor!

Have a look – note the lack of any tangible hows, or whens, or wheres and the apparent inability to distinguish between digital marketing and the (very small and practically valueless) subset of digital that is social media. 

Frankly, this is dangerous voodoo nonsense and it makes me quite uncomfortable.

Corporate Communications – The Authentic Enterprise

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

Found this down the back of the internet. It’s a report – entitled The Authentic Enterprise – from  the Arthur W. Page Society (an American organisation for the promotion and betterment of public affairs and corporate communications professionals). It examines the changing nature of a business’ relations with its publics and what it needs to do to adapt to, exist in and survive today’s world of open and transparent communications. I should say – it’s from 2007 – but I hope the following exerpts will intrigue you as much as they intrigued me. It’s genuinely quite sensible.

“The quality of the company’s products and services (or lack thereof) is apparent to all customers and potential customers. Its treatment of employees and retirees is visible across the corporation and to potential employees and public interest groups. Its citizen ship, environmental behaviour, corporate governance standards, executive compensation practices and public policy recommendations are transparent to all.”

“A company must be able to answer such questions as: What business are we in? What markets do we serve? What differentiates us as an employer, an investment, a partner, a neighbour? In what do we deeply believe? What will endure? What do we value? And how can we ensure that everyone associated with the far-flung enterprise understands and acts in accordance with our mission, values, goals and operating principles?”

“However, building a management system based on values is a significant challenge.”

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating a Plan 4

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , .

So, Who Owns the Crisis?

First, an apology for the depths of ennui that I plumbed in yesterday’s post. *rse. I’d forgotten how mind-numbing the whole preparation deal can be – but, just because it’s teeth-grindingly tedious, doesn’t mean it’s not important. Go away and do it. You’ll be happier when you have. Honest. You can make it more interesting by identifying the things that I’ve forgotten, thereby adding to the wow factor of your preparation experience. OK, that’s nonsense. Just get on with it!

I’m going to divide this section into two and, to the undoubted and unbounded relief of those who are sticking with this out of some misguided sense of duty (thank you so much), I’m going to keep it brief.

First, let’s talk about who actually owns the crisis management plan – the preparation of parts of which you are so deeply embroiled in right now. Well, on the one hand, it should be the top bod. Mr Pinnacle. Your MD or CEO. He, or indeed, she, is ultimately responsible for the direction, development and performance of your business and therefore should take responsibility for the business when things get a bit out of shape. On the other hand, as we all know, these people operate on a slightly different plane to the rest of us and simply do not (mostly) have the focus, or the patience to deal with the detail that’s necessary to get this right. And, although they may not seem it, these people are professional optimists – they cannot allow themselves to believe that anything can go wrong with the business that they are stewarding (it would drive them nuts).

So, in brief, you need to find someone senior enough to be able to lead and enrol other senior people in the business and yet paranoid and detail-oriented enough to be concerned about  getting it right. There are normally two candidates – your Head of Legal Affairs, or your Company Secretary. If you’ve got one person doing both roles then, in the vernacular, bingo!

(Apologies to all those of my blog snorkellers who work in companies that have Health and Safety departments or officers. You’ve already got plans, and quite scarily-committed people looking after them. With hi-vis jackets, no doubt.)

Which brings me to the second part of this post – who actually owns the crisis when it’s happening. Clearly – and everything I’m posting here is not meant to be definitive, it requires the fertilizer of your thoughts for it to bloom – it’s going to depend on what sort of crisis you’ve got – whether, in fact, it’s just an issuette, or whether it’s something that is going to have a long-term, company-wide impact. And therefore, in amongst your preparation, you’re going to need an escalation plan – a sort of chart which shows who needs to know what and when.

You see, in this case, the ultimate owner of the crisis IS the MD or CEO – ‘cos he or she is the one who’ll be doing five years in Pentonville if the company’s found to be negligent – but (for all the reasons stated above) she (or he) is not going to want to be bothered by a small glitch on the production line. While it’s not entirely your job to decide how far up the food chain the news of your issue/crisis needs to be escalated, you can be certain that senior people are not going to be terribly forgiving if they read it in the paper before you’ve told them about it. Or worse – if they’ve been stupid enough to give their ‘phone numbers to the media – they get a call about it before you’ve briefed them.

Finally for this post, your escalation plan – which, as I hope I’ve already made clear, will, like the rest of your prep, be formulated with the help of others from around your business who are likely to be involved in the event of a crisis – should show ‘levels of engagement’. Simply put, this describes the teams that come together to co-ordinate the management of the crisis.

Normally called Gold, Silver and Bronze – something to do with the military or the emergency services, I think – they are basically a junior team, dealing with things on the ground, a middle-ranking team, directing things on the ground and making longer-term decisions, and the senior team, formulating strategy, handing down approvals and shaping the future. To be clear – dependent on what your crisis is, you may never need to call your middle and senior teams together – simply keeping them informed may be enough. But you need to be clear on how those decisions are made.

Next time, on ‘I’m an Idiot, Make me a Crisis Management Plan’ – I’ll summarise where we’ve got to. And then it’s on to the fun stuff………..

Crisis Management – The Idiot’s Guide To Creating A Plan 3

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Crisis Management Guides, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , , .

Preparing to Deal With a Crisis

Today, dear and faithful blog snorkellers, we’re going to look at the homework you need to do in preparation for dealing with a crisis, whenever it happens.

First, however, some home truths. You, the corporate communicator, do not own a crisis. Communication is key to the crisis management process – but so is the safety of your employees, customers and the community, operating within the law, making sure your business still does business, guaranteeing your suppliers and staff are paid and ensuring your records and data are safe.

The comms team protects corporate reputation and maintains stakeholder confidence, and is central to all aspects of the crisis management process – but we do not lead it, we do not own it and we are not the single most important thing.

Not so long ago, in a crisis simulation exercise, I felt that an operations person had been slow in providing my team with information fundamental to the external comms strategy.

In the heat of the moment, and in front of his colleagues, I said I didn’t care how busy he was maintaining his part of the business and that it was none of my concern. I was solely interested in the reputation and trust that would allow the business to function in the future, and that his duty was to help me achieve my goals. Needless to say, backs went up, and the situation has a couple of ugly moments.

I still believe I was right – but I had made the mistake of forgetting that comms works in tandem with all the other strands of crisis management. I’ll come back to the issue of who owns the crisis and how it might work in another post, but in the meantime, remember that, in all your preparation (as outlined below) you should involve others. It’ll make it easier later.

In preparation, these are the things you should consider:

Scenario planning – what are the issues that could affect your company, and how would your company be affected if one (or more) of them became reality? Make a bullet-point list of all of them.

Reserve statements and Q&A – bear in mind that when a crisis strikes, you will not have all the facts and you will not have had time to assess the situation. You may, however (dependent on the nature of the crisis), be expected to communicate immediately, without access to a spokesperson, or any form of approval process. Create a holding statement, or statements, if necessary leaving gaps for names and places, and get approval in advance. All the holding statement needs to do is acknowledge that something is happening, accept that information needs to be gathered and promise to issue further details within a specified timeframe. Looking at your scenario list, you should also be able to make a start on a generic Q&A document, which can be approved in advance. This will need updating on a regular basis.

Equipment and location – what will you need to run a communications centre? Computers, telephones, fax machines, whiteboards, headed paper, plain paper, envelopes, plastic folders, pens, staplers, desks, chairs – make a list. Bear in mind that your office may not be accessible – where would you go, and does that location have all the things you need?

Spokespeople and contact details – if you’re unlucky enough to face a crisis with immediate media interest, your reserve statements will only hold for so long – probably about half an hour – before you need to give a more detailed briefing. At this point, the media will want to hear from someone who isn’t part of the comms team – preferably a senior executive. You should create a bank of senior spokespeople, media trained and familiar with the crisis comms plan, on a rota and ready to be contacted at any time during their ‘on-call’ period. The comms team, the spokespeople and all those involved in the crisis management process should have a copy of the rota and a full contact list, containing the entire team’s contact details.

Holding and waiting areas – in that case of a full-blown crisis (especially one involving destruction of property or loss of life) the media are likely to be there before the emergency services, closely followed by the general public. You cannot afford to have either group simply milling around – they will inevitably stray into areas that may be unsafe, or restricted and they will ask questions that people may not be able to answer. You will need to provide areas where both groups can wait – if possible separately. Again, remember that your buildings may not be accessible – is there an alternative?

This is simply a starter. You will probably think of other things that you need to have, or need to do. Also bear in mind that, in the case of crisis involving death and/or destruction, you’ll be working with the emergency services, who have a tendency to take over. Be prepared, but also be flexible.

Next time, we’ll look at who owns the crisis in more detail, and who should be involved.

Corporate Communications – Doing God’s Work 3

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Public Relations and tagged , , , , , , , , .

More sequels than a Governator franchise. Anyway, this one’s for those committed blog snorkellers who’ve waded through my musings on the whole Goldman Sachs/Sunday Times ‘doing God’s work’ SNAFU. Earlier today, I posted links to commentary from the London Evening Standard (which I agree with), which say that Goldman’s have (and I’m paraphrasing) made the mother of all cock-ups with their attempt at public relations, and deserve the pillorying (doesn’t look right – pilloring? pillorising?) that they’re getting.

But then it struck me. (Well, I was watching TV last night, and there was an entire programme dedicated to it.) The London Evening Standard. Owned by a Russian. Ex-KGB. Is it too much to suppose that he (or those who may be backing him) might have an interest in destabilising a leading bank such as Goldman Sachs?

But, you’ll scoff, the original damning Goldman Sachs feature/interview was in The Sunday Times (of London). Yes. It was. Owned by one R Murdoch Esq. Who might also – and I don’t have to stretch my imagination too much – have an interest in destabilising the world’s economy, one bank at a time.

I think there’s more to this than meets the eye. Well, actually, for the sake of conspiracy theorists around the world, I hope there is.