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Tom got the call to be the spokesperson for a crisis his company was facing. Tom felt he was prepared and ready to handle the situation. That night Tom about croaked as he watched the news. Tom forgot the Seven Cardinal Rules of speaking to the media. We see this countless times as we work with executives on how to handle crises both internally and when dealing with the media.
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The history of our nation is marked by triumphs, defeats, scandals and moments of stunning poise in the economy, business, technology, culture, politics and ... PR?
To tip our hats to communications efforts of yore that lay buried in textbooks and handbooks and guidebooks, PR News recently conducted a survey asking readers to select what they consider to be the greatest PR endeavor from a list that spans our young nation's lifetime. And the results? While no corner of history was left uninfluenced by the tenets of public relations (or whatever its earliest incarnation would have been called), the crowning achievement was voted (from a pool of 400 respondents) to be ...
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Crises come in many flavors. Some relate to the security of client data or the image of a company that fails to deliver on a promise, while others attack the health and well-being of both employees and clients, and even the very existence of a company or organization.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, violated New York City on many levels, tallied in the loss of lives, the destruction of property and the failure of companies left without physical offices, resources, employees or stock. In the eye of the storm, quite literally, was NYC & Co., New York City's official tourism marketing organization.
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The essence of crisis communications is an ethical approach to the subject at hand – one cannot communicate effectively if language and intentions are laced with insincerity or deliberate deception.
But what happens when the corporate culture is shaky when it comes to ethics? How does this effect crisis communications?
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For all that’s been written about risk, issue, and crisis management, there’s no evidence that organizations are any more effective at managing them. Why do some companies turn disasters into crises, while others manage to contain the fallout? One can break the problem down into three areas.
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Bad news for the apologists among us: The "Safeguarding Reputation" study released by Weber Shandwick last week revealed that, of the 950 global business leaders surveyed, a 59 percent majority see public apologies by CEOs as less effective than other strategies when it comes to crisis and tarnished reputations. Instead, respondents identified the following as the best steps to reputation recovery.
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Sandra Alstadt is a risk-taker. In an industry where spontaneous judgment calls often prompt a series of unfortunate events, she possesses the take-charge ability and, quite literally, anticipates the calm before the storm.
As crisis communication command leader for Entergy Corporation, Alstadt was the woman in charge when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast last year. The company's location in the eye of the storm meant that, in addition to the chaos and personal tragedies, the corporate headquarters had to be moved, not to mention the usual communications challenges that go along with a crisis of that magnitude.
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Katrina's devastating impact on the lives of people in the Gulf Coast region was common knowledge within hours after the storm made landfall. However, the toll the hurricane took on the lives of animals wasn't noted until much later. The American Veterinary Medical Association's PR professionals were quick to take action in defense of these voiceless victims.
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