Crisis Management

It’s a tradition for Solomon McCown & Cence to share its video of the year’s top PR crises with us. This year’s video offers plenty of lessons.

Amazon has responded to a deadly warehouse collapse that killed at least six employees with several rote “thoughts and prayers” responses from spokespeople. Add a too-little-too-late comment from executive chairman Jeff Bezos, and any company would find itself in a communications crisis with long-term consequences.

There are no great ways to deliver a termination message. Still, firing 900 employees via Zoom without emotion, and then berating them online, is awful.

Alec Baldwin should have accepted some responsibility during his first interview since the fatal shooting. Instead, he botched an excellent moment.

What’s the best way to walk back a statement that, with time, becomes a misstatement? There are a number of options:

With experience in crisis, PR professionals may have to utilize their own tactics when it comes to diffusing an all-out brawl at a Thanksgiving family gathering. 

Crisis pros can learn from firefighters. While firefighters’ reverence for training is well known, it’s not automatic. They, too, battle complacency.

Reading McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski’s ill-conceived comments about recent shooting deaths of two children in Chicago (including one in a McDonald’s drive-thru) prompted out contributor to write about the Emotional Intelligence Quotient, or EQ.

Viewing the threat of ransomware through numbers illustrates its gravity. It takes an average of 280 days to identify and contain a breach and costs $1.85 million to remediate, double the 2020 figure. More than half (52 percent) of all breaches are deemed malicious.

More than half of organizations compromised in the past three years deployed some form of automated security system. This suggests that technology alone is not enough. The IT team must purposefully build, review and test a cybersecurity plan. So, how can communicators contribute? They can partner with experts to clearly explain this complex topic to the C-suite and employees.

Jes Staley wasn’t the first financial-sector heavyweight to step down after reports surfaced that he had ties with the late, notorious Jeffrey Epstein. Preceding the CEO of Barclays to the exits was billionaire Leon Black, CEO and chairman of Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm. Similarities between the Staley and Black stories are useful for crisis communicators.