Editor’s Note: With so much reporting of how botched crisis response can harm companies and organizations, why do we continue to see so many crises mishandled? We asked veteran crisis pros Ayme Zemke, EVP, Beehive Strategic Communication, and Gene Grabowski, partner, kglobal, to dive into this complex question. Their remarks were edited for space.
CRISIS INSIDER: Gene, with all the examples of what not to do in a crisis, why do we still see so many errors?
Gene Grabowski: Let me begin in defense of some companies. I’ve been doing this for 30 years; one of the things I’ve noticed is that with each year, managing crises has become harder and harder.
CI: Why?
Grabowski: There are too many ways to mess up a crisis and only a few ways to do it right. There are also too many people involved...too many powerful stakeholders who always are looking over your shoulder or criticizing you.
You’ve got customers, employers, consumers, news media, shareholders and the board of directors.
And now you have social media, on top of everything else. So, there are so many different stakeholders...everyone’s a critic.
Ayme Zemke: To your point, expectations are continuing to rise and change. For example, expectations have never been higher for businesses to act according to their values. There’s been an interesting shift in the last couple of years…and it’s not just in crisis situations, but on critical social issues as well.
Preparation is Key
CI: Ayme, what is another reason we continue to see crises mishandled?
Zemke: Lack of preparation is still a big one. There are still more organizations than I’d like to admit that see crisis as an ‘if’ rather than a ‘when.’
This lack of preparation creates unnecessary risk. There are a lot of very good tools and resources to guide crisis preparedness and help organizations be ready to respond thoughtfully and intentionally. Without that preparation in place, businesses are forced to wing it while under the stress of the crisis. That’s where people get into a lot of trouble, making it up as they go.
Universities and Crisis
Grabowski: And it’s not just companies that are struggling with crisis. It’s also universities. They’re often the toughest ones to help in a crisis.
CI: Why?
Grabowski: Because they have the most stakeholders.
If you’re working with a corporation, the CEO or general counsel can give an order, it filters down and people follow through, for the most part.
At a university, no one is perceived to be in charge. There’s the administration, the board, the alumni, students, faculty. And there’s no chain of command. They have more variables than corporations.
So, right off the bat, companies and organizations, at one level, are to be forgiven for not always doing such a great job [in a crisis], because there are so many ways to be judged as doing it poorly. You’re not always measured if you’re doing [crisis] right; you’re being judged and that’s subjective.
CI: Still, we see so many mistakes.
Grabowski: Yes. Companies and institutions [can make a crisis] worse because they make obvious mistakes.
CI: What’s one you see a lot?
Grabowski: [Companies] write and deliver messages before determining what their strategy or objective is in a crisis.
Frequently, when I get called in to do a crisis, [the organization will] immediately say, ‘We need messages. We need talking points.’
I’ll say, ‘Wait. What’s our objective here? What are we trying to do?’
Zemke: This is why listening during a crisis is so important. In a crisis, it can be a natural reaction to just want to push out information, in an effort to quell whatever’s happening.
Sometimes companies can be so worried about how to react, they forget to take a step back in order to be thoughtful and intentional in their response.
As Gene says, you need to have a broad understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish. What is the desired outcome long- and short-term?
This is where listening comes in. You have to ask, ‘What are we hearing from employees? From the marketplace? From customers or consumers?’
Answers to those questions should help guide how you your respond along with your purpose, mission and values…employees and the public will sense in heartbeat if you’re out of alignment. That will break trust very quickly...
Employees and Crisis
CI: We like what you’re saying about keeping employees informed.
Zemke: It’s a fairly common mistake to forget about your employees in a crisis. Companies can get so focused on an external response that they unintentionally forget to commmunicate with employees.
But employees feel uncertainty and stress as much as any other stakeholder group…you have to bring them along and keep them informed [during a crisis]. As you know, in the absence of information, people make things up and that can be a real liability.
You have to listen to them and consistently communicate as you bring the business forward [during and after a crisis]…that will enable them to be your advocates.
Grabowski: Another reason you see mistakes is the size of crisis teams.
A crisis team should be no more than about six people. When you have more than that, politics breaks out.
When you have 10-20 people involved, you can’t get anything done, especially on a conference call.
And often if there’s more than six and the group includes the CEO and there are sycophants around, they’re jockeying for position. They’re wondering who’s getting ahead. Maybe somebody doesn’t want to seem foolish, so he doesn’t say something. Or someone with authority says something, and maybe it’s not the brightest suggestion, but people fall into line because that person has authority.
Zemke: I’ve not encountered that problem as much as you have, Gene.
What I’ve seen more of is a lack of clarity and responsibility internally.
I definitely agree it’s important to keep the team [numbers] tight, and also think having clear roles and responsibilities is an area where organizations could do a better job. You have to know who is leading, who is doing what, who is accountable, who needs to review.
Size Matters
Grabowski: Another thing is that organizations in crisis assemble these big teams, but there’s nobody from the outside. They try to do it themselves.
So, A, the communication and marketing people have a stake in following orders. As a result, they won’t propose anything that’s drastic or at variance with the general counsel or CEO. They’re too often trying to save their jobs.
And B, they don’t do crisis every day. They think they do, but they don’t. So, they’re trying to solve the problem with inadequate resources.
I’ll give you an example. So many manufacturers today have thousands of lawsuits at any given time. Out of 1,000 lawsuits against them, how many does the in-house team handle or try in court?
The answer is zero. They hire outside attorneys.
OK, now, how many of those same companies try to handle high-level communication crises internally? Most of them. Huge mistake.
Why would you think you could handle something as important as your reputation, your legacy and your brand with your in-house people when you won’t even handle a slip-and-fall case without external resources for litigation?
CI: So, what’s happening here?
Grabowski: For some reason, they don’t think communication in a crisis is important enough to bring in outside experts.
There are some very, very good internal communication people, but they’re prone to making mistakes in a crisis.
This is something crisis expert Eric Dezenhall talks about. He’s nailed it. Corporations think they’ve assembled ‘Dream Teams’ to handle crisis inside. He calls them ‘Nightmare Teams.’
Third-Party CRISIS Experts
CI: Why do in-house PR pros tend to make more mistakes during a crisis?
Grabowski: It’s bedlam; they’re too close to it. And there’s a hierarchy and people are afraid of losing their high-paid jobs.
You need to bring in outside counsel; for us, it’s another in a series of crises that we’ve seen afflict numerous clients. And we can handle it objectively. Inside communicators can’t handle crisis objectively...there are too many pressures.
Zemke: I agree there are clear benefits to bringing in third-party expertise.
Let’s say, for example, the CEO is not the best person to be the face of the company for crisis response. This is where a third party can be a real benefit…because when you are in the organization day in and day out, it’s often hard to look at your CEO and say, ‘You’re not the right choice to be our spokesperson in this situation.’
As a third-party representative you can be more a little more controlled and objective…and can really speak from a marketplace standpoint. It’s hard to do that when [as a member of the company] you’re in the thick of it.
And when you layer over that the pressure of a crisis; it can be difficult to pop your head out of the water [and be objective].
Tactics vs. Strategy
Grabowski: That leads to another point. Too often [companies and organizations are] handling [crisis] tactically instead of strategically.
They’re thinking, ‘If I can just do X,Y and Z, I can get through this.’ [But] it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You have to be in it for the long haul.
Crisis communication doesn’t end when you think it does. It goes on. You have to follow up. You have to restore confidence in the organization.
Most companies are so gratified when the big headlines go away and they think the crisis is over. They don’t realize there’s a lot of bad will and lingering issues that have to be dealt with. They move right into business as usual without realizing the damage that’s been done.
Zemke: Crisis has a very long tail. It goes well beyond your initial response. It’s not about quieting the initial roar or putting out the immediate fire and then going back to business as usual. That’s a common misconception.
There are several phases to a crisis. There’s the immediate response, of course. But then you have to take time to consider what’s changed and what you need to do to move forward. And then what adjustments you need to make.
CI: What are some other issues?
Zemke: Leaders who are not crisis-ready. They’ve not been through, for instance, media coaching.
Leaders are part of the crisis plan, so you have to make sure they’re ready to respond. Some leaders can do this naturally; for some, it’s a learned skill. And it’s definitely a learned skill.
We find sometimes we have to spend time helping a leader get ready to respond in a clear, genuine and heartfelt way, depending on the situation.
CI: And during a crisis is not the time to train leaders.
Zemke: Right. In that case, another senior executive will be the company’s face.
C-Suite Distance
CI: Gene, what about leadership?
Grabowski: Very few big companies today are managed by people whose soul and heart are really in the business.
Companies are being bought and sold willy-nilly. Corporations are huge. And decisions are made primarily, and sometimes exclusively, for the shareholders. They’re the one audience that counts. That is a huge mistake.
To organizations like these, the customer or consumer is not the most important thing. It’s the shareholder or the holding company. That creates its own set of problems.
When you go into a crisis, and you’re thinking just about yourself or your shareholders, you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The corporate mind is focused on getting [a crisis] solved to its satisfaction. ‘ I want to keep my job. I want to get home on time. I want my life back.’
In a crisis, it’s not about you. It’s not even about your company. It’s about how you’re being perceived by your customers and consumers. And, sometimes, by your shareholders. Shareholders are stakeholders, too. But they’re not the only ones.
CI: So, what’s the result?
Grabowski: [Corporations go] into crises looking for quick fixes. ‘How can I get through this in the most expedient way? What messages will they buy into?’ Instead of [focusing on] ‘What’s that mother of three who’s trying to protect her family thinking now?’
I always have to remind clients of who the customer or consumer is and how they’re being viewed. [Corporate executives are] worried about losing their job, losing their stock package. They’re worrying about everything but how they’re being perceived.
What would you say to that mother of 3 who is perceiving your product or company as a threat to her family?
If you put yourself in her shoes, look backward from that perception; those are the companies that will successfully navigate through a crisis.
But there are very few. That’s because the C-Suite is so far removed from the consumer they sometimes don’t even know who their consumers are.
Zemke: Understanding where your employees and stakeholders are at is critically important. What are people truly concerned about? What’s at the heart of the situation? Lack of that understanding will cause immediate trust issues for your organization.
Not actively listening is a mistake I see too often, and ideally, organizations should be listening to their stakeholders and the marketplace all the time.
Grabowski: And it gets more and more like this every year. Henry Ford actually knew how to build a car. The people who started Chrysler did too. The Toyota family members were engineers. They knew how to build things.
Companies now are run by people in C-Suites who have marketing degrees and don’t know how to build the very products they’re selling. They’re too far removed from the consumer and what she perceives. Everything they know about consumers comes from spreadsheets, surveys, studies, polls. Everything but experience with the product.
People who are running companies, for the most part, go to the best schools. They’re not engineers; some of them aren’t even consumers of their products. It’s a removal from what the consumer is thinking. And in the end, when you get into a crisis you don’t know what your customers’ issues are.
CI: Give us an example.
Grabowski: Peloton. It’s a cool company, run by cool people…they seemed to thing they were marketing only to people very much like themselves. They finally recalled their product after stubbornly saying they wouldn’t.
The Peloton treadmill design ignored many safety issues…because Peloton was too cool and was tone-deaf toward a large number of its customers.
Elon Musk is running into the same problem. He’s a cool guy making cars for other cool people…If you’re successful, eventually non-cool people are going to buy those vehicles, people who are going to be angry if their loved ones are injured or killed as a result of using your product.
So, there’s often too much of a removal from the people you are serving. And that influences how you manage a crisis.
CI: Ayme, is the C-Suite disconnected from consumers and customers?
Zemke: I’m sure that’s the case in some organizations, but I wouldn’t make the generalization that it’s true overall.
If an organization’s entire C-Suite is disconnected [from the consumer or customer], that’s disappointing. That organization won’t have a great long-term future…to lack a good understanding of your stakeholders is a huge liability… your risk extends beyond the organization’s crisis response to your entire brand.
So, while some C-Suite leaders have lost touch, I think that’s shifting. I see change there and anticipate a lot more change…there’s less patience for an organization that’s out of touch with the people who keep it afloat. It’s unfortunate there are still organizations that operate that way.
I don’t think that will be the norm in the future.
Upbeat Word About Prep
CI: Ayme, you said some companies and leaders are unprepared for crisis. Do you think, though, that preparation is trending upward as companies are becoming more aware that a mishandled crisis can be devastating?
Zemke: It’s getting better. To your point, there is more recognition of what can happen when a crisis is not handled well. It’s rarely the crisis that will take you down. More often it’s how you responded to that crisis that will take you down. [Crisis] response is so important to keep loyalty and retain trust, with customers and employees.
It’s getting better because organizations are feeling more pressure to pay attention. The level of patience and willingness to stick with an organization…has shifted as well. There are a lot of choices. If people feel a business is not aligned with their values or reacting in an ethical or authentic way, they’ll be very quick to make a change. And that’s for business-to-consumer and business-to-business companies.
That’s caused a shift in the last few years that has helped businesses to pay more attention and be more open to proactively preparing. There’s an understanding that businesses have to do better to survive and ultimately thrive.