Crisis Communications Plans

This is our 5^th and final day of looking back at the sins of 2009 and ways to redeem ourselves for 2010.

Today we’ll look at what leaders don’t know.

In 2009 I launched a new keynote called, Leadership When “It” Hits the Fan. It has placed me on the stage in front of a growing list of associations and audiences of CEOs, VPs and managers.

And as much as I bashed Social Media yesterday for being a shiny new object, the fact is, that shiny new object can have serious negative consequences for a company, especially when things go wrong.

It always disturbs me during my keynote, as I enter a dialogue with the leaders, to learn exactly what they know, what they don’t know, and what they don’t know they don’t know.

During a crisis I live by a cardinal rule to communicate quickly with the media, your employees and other key stakeholders. My goal is to make sure a company issues a public statement within the first hour that a crisis has gone public.

Leaders, meanwhile, often fall into decision paralysis. As a result, they make no decision because they fear they will make the wrong decision. They wait to have all the facts before they say anything at all.

The biggest thing leaders don’t know, going into 2010, is how fast the world of Social Media moves. Leaders are oblivious to the fact that while they are in their crisis command center, deciding if they should issue a statement, their employees, customers and the public are posting comments, pictures and videos to the web at lightening fast speed.

During my keynote, I ask the leaders how many of them have used the most popular forms of social media.

• When asked how many use LinkedIn.com, 10% - 20% usually say yes.

• When asked how many use FaceBook.com, fewer than 10% say yes.

• When asked how many have watched a video on YouTube.com, 25% usually say yes.

• When asked how many have ever posted a video to YouTube.com, the response drops to fewer than 2%.

• When asked how many use Twitter.com, the response is usually 0-1%.

This should be especially disturbing because 2009 was the year that a fully loaded passenger plane landed in the Hudson River in the middle of the world’s biggest media capitol, yet the first official news photo came from a citizen on a ferry boat with an i-Phone and TwitPics.

So is your leadership team fully educated or clueless? Is one of your 2009 sins a failure to educate your leaders about the negative impact of Social Media? If so, I’ll help you as best as I can in 2010 to find redemption. I can offer you several free articles for your company or association publications. Articles are a great way to reach leaders. My keynote is available for corporate and association meetings if you’d like me to do the dirty work for you. And you are welcome to join me Monday, January 19^th for my teleseminar on Social Media When “It” Hits the Fan. Which ever of these might benefit you, look for my contact information in the e-mail for today’s BraudCast. I’m in the office waiting for your call. (Here is my contact link as well.)

The main thing is to find channels in 2010 to education your leaders, because When “It” Hits the Fan and things get ugly because of their failings, lack of knowledge and miscalculations, they may ultimately place the blame on you.

To listen to this program as an audio BraudCast use this link

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I get asked about using Social Media a lot as a crisis communications tool, so on January 19^th at 11 a.m. CST, I’ll host a special telemseminar called, Social Media When “It” Hits the Fan. If this is a topic that impacts your and your team, I invite you to sign up. We’ll look at examples of when Social Media has worked well and when it has been a huge failure.

January 15, 2009 generated the Tweet Heard ‘Round the World, as a TwitPic became the first official news coverage of an airplane landing in the Hudson River.

We’ll discuss this game changer and the changing face of crisis communications in a special teleseminar called, “Social Media When It Hits the Fan.”

Please register now.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

11 a.m. CST

Registration $99

($79 for BraudCast subscribers with discount code)

(FREE to Braud Crisis Communications Plan users with discount code)

Warning: I’m very harsh on how Social Media is used as an outgoing communications tool. I’ll also dig deep into what your leaders don’t understand about Social Media’s negative impact in a crisis.

Who should attend: Public Relations & Communications Teams, Risk Managers, Emergency Operations Teams, Human Resource Teams, Security Teams

Suggestion: Listen as a team, then schedule a one hour meeting of your teams to discuss what you heard and how it will change your internal and external procedures.

Today we’re going to look at one of the biggest sins of 2009… shiny new objects syndrome.

When I look back at 2009, I’ll remember it as the year that people became obsessed with Twitter and Facebook. Seems everywhere I turned, people were clamoring over these shinny new objects… like aborigines who have seen themselves in a mirror for the first time.

The obsession with these tools is perplexing for me, because I know some people truly enjoy them… while others have jumped on the bandwagon because they fear being left behind. It’s a classic version of trying to keep up with the Jones.

The sad reality, is that while many people were chasing after the shinny new objects, they took their eye off the ball; they lost track of priorities, especially in the field of communications.

All communications is about what you want the other person to know and how you want them to respond to that communications. There are many tools that can help you achieve this goal, but too many people in communications have tried to force fit Social Media not only into their tool kit, but to make it paramount as a communications tools.

I think that is a bad idea. Social media reflects a huge generational gap between those under 30 who use it often and those older than 30 who have never used or seen a social media site.

While they tools have their benefits for maintaining certain relationships, they are often a force fit in a corporate culture. Sure, frantic fans of a movie star may want to track their every move on Twitter, but do customers of a chemical company really need to follow your Tweets…and do you really think that I want to follow your Facebook fan page? Not likely.

The reality is, as a communications platform, Social Media sites are unreliable and vulnerable to hacking. There are still many other forms of communications in your tool chest that are more reliable and are better for reaching your loyal audience.

So if shiny new object syndrome was your sin in 2009, as we enter 2010, your redemption would be to make an effort to not get distracted by what is shinny and new, but to use it only when it is a good fit and the right fit…not a force fit.

I get asked about using Social Media a lot as a crisis communications tool, so on January 19^th at 11 a.m. CST, I’ll host a special telemseminar called, Social Media When “It” Hits the Fan. If this is a topic that impacts your and your team, I invite you to sign up. We’ll look at examples of when Social Media has worked well and when it has been a huge failure.

Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up the week with a look at what leaders don’t know and how it impacts your job.

And…

1) If you’d like to sign up FREE for the audio version of this, known as the BraudCast, click here.

2) For a FREE sample listen, this is your link

As we look back at the sins of 2009 and ways to redeem yourself in 2010, today’s lesson is about how to be opportunistic.

Opportunistic means you take advantage of a situation to get what you want. Maybe it is because I grew up in a large family and had to fight my 3 older brothers and a younger sister for everything I got, but being opportunistic has served me well in life.

Being opportunistic means that when you observe a situation, you use the power of persuasion, supported by a business case, to convince your boss to let you do what needs to be done, even if you’ve previously been told “no,” as we discussed yesterday.

You can apply this technique to many of your communications needs, but since I write crisis communications plans and teach media training, I’ll share with you a real life example of a HUGE opportunity that passed many people by in 2009.

Every year I get a wave of inquiries from people who want me to help them write their crisis communications plan, and most want a package, complete with a crisis communications drill and train their spokespeople. Many of the inquiries come this time of year because so many people these items on a list of goals and tasks to complete for the coming years. But many of those plans didn’t get written in 2009 because people were told “no, there’s no money in the budget.”

Then in April 2009, the Swine Flu epidemic began. This crisis presented a huge opportunity for you to go back to your boss, paint a grim picture, explain the potential negative impact the Swine Flu could have on your businesses, and get the funding you need.

Another way to be opportunistic is to get help from other departments. Pandemics are a huge concern for risk managers and human resource managers. In every risk management and human resources seminar, there are classes that focus on dealing with pandemics. This is a big issue for them. That means that if you are opportunistic, you can partner with those other managers to convince leadership that a crisis communications plan is an important element of risk management and employee communications.

Most of you who subscribe to the BraudCast are in internal communications, external communications, media relations, PR and marketing. And many folks in these fields are, by their very nature timid, and often take “no” as a final answer. I’d suggest that for 2010 you set as one of your goals to become opportunistic.

Look at it this way… In the case of the Swine Flu, workers would get sick, workers might die, productivity, production and sales could suffer… and you’d be called upon, likely at the last minute, to start crafting both a strategy and messages to deal with the impending crisis. That’s not really fair to you, is it? Especially if there is a solution, namely a pre-written crisis communications plan with pre-written templates. And if you already have a plan, you know it needs to update and tested. I have one client who is so opportunistic that I help him conduct 4 crisis communications drills every year.

So if you know in your heart that being prepared is the right thing to do professionally… then the answer is, being opportunistic is also the right thing to do professionally. If you achieve your goal and still do it legally and ethically, there is nothing wrong with being opportunistic.

Timing is critical when you are trying to be opportunistic. You have to be ready build a business case immediately after a crisis begins and present it to leadership while the crisis is still fresh in their minds. It doesn’t matter if the crisis is where you work or if it is a high profile crisis in the news. I can tell you from experience that each day that you get further from the crisis, the more likely leadership is to forget the trauma and devalue your proposal.

If your 2009 sin was a missed opportunity, your redemption in 2010 is setting a goal to be more opportunistic.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about Shinny New Objects.

And…

1) If you’d like to sign up FREE for the audio version of this, known as the BraudCast, click here.

2) For a FREE sample listen, this is your link.

3) Sign up for the upcoming teleseminar “Social Media When It Hits the Fan.”

by Gerard Braud

gerard@braudcommunications.com
www.braudcommunications.com
www.crisiscommunications.com

Kanye West — You were on Jay Leno last night. Your had a chance. You blew it. So here’s a free Media Training 101 course — Your key message should have been, “I’m sorry.” In 3 minutes on the air you never got around to saying those simple words. It should have been the first words out of your mouth.

Here is your link for today’s BraudCast

Here is your link to sign up for the BraudCast

Big warning on the BraudCast today.
Big warning as we commemorate September 11th.
Big warning as we remember August 29th, the recent anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Big warning as your kids go back to school.
Big warning for all executives.
Big warning for everyone in public relations.

Why all the warnings?

After September 11th and Hurricane Katrina the Federal government launched a massive emergency communications effort. However, these efforts have little, or anything, to do with PR people communicating with the media, employees and other key stakeholders.

The reason I issue the warning is that many schools, government agencies, hospitals and companies are not doing what they are supposed to be doing… and many executives, government leaders, hospital administrators and school leaders think they now have all the communications tools they need.

They are so wrong.

All of these emergency communications efforts deal with the radio systems that allow first responders to talk with one another during a crisis. RADIO SYSTEMS.

They have nothing to do with communicating the written and spoken word with your core audiences.

Many school systems and many law enforcement agencies around the country spent the summer rolling out what are known as NIMS Emergency Plans. In the program, government buildings and school buildings have all been given special numbers to identify them during an emergency.

One PR person recently told me her boss said he no longer needed Media Training because if there was a disaster, the FBI would be their spokesperson. Another executive stopped a PR department from working on their Crisis Communications Plan because they were part of the new Federal Emergency Communications System.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It frightens me what executives know, what they think they know, what they don’t know, and what they don’t know they don’t know.

For clarification, yes, executives and administrators still need Media Training because in a crisis, they still need to talk to the media, employees and other key audiences. In schools, that means the training needs to include talking with students, parents, faculty and staff. In a hospital it means talking with patients and their families. In a company it means talking with customers as well as the media and employees.

If your event involves first responders, they DO NOT become your spokesperson. Their interest is different than your interest. If a Joint Information Command is set up for news conferences, your spokespeople talk about what you know, while the responders and law enforcement talk about what they know.

Additionally, every organization needs its own Crisis Communications Plan in addition to any NIMS plan, Incident Command plan or Emergency Operations Plan. Those plans ONLY coordinate responders arriving in a timely manner and talking to one another through secure radio systems. They DO NOT include instructions for your written and spoken communications to your audiences. They DO NOT include all of the dozens of pre-written news releases that your crisis communications plan should contain.

I’ve posted new resources in the definitions section of 2 websites, including:
www.crisiscommunicationsplans.com and www.schoolcrisisplan.com

Please forward these to your leadership to educate them.
Please forward the link to the podcast to educate them.

As you can tell, I’m passionate about this and I’m concerned about the misinformation and misconceptions that is out there. Your own Media Training and your own Crisis Communications Plan can save lives through communications prior to a natural disaster, such as communicating evacuations for a hurricane… and during a crisis, such as a school shooting or workplace violence event. You would be using your written and spoken communications skills long before first responders even get involved, while responders are on the scene, and long after they have left the scene.

Here’s today’s call to action. Meet with your leaders and discuss this with them. If your leadership won’t listen to you, I’ll be happy to talk with and explain it. I’m also happy to speak to any association conventions where your leaders may be in the audience. As PR professionals we need to stick together on this and educate our leaders and executives. I’ve updated my website at www.braudcommunications.com with a new keynote called Leadership When “It” Hits the Fan, specifically designed to address some of these issues.

Let’s work on this together. After all, it is our job as strategic communications professionals.

Here is your link to listen to today’s BraudCast.

Here is your link to sign up for FREE.

Here are three incredible resources, ranging from Free to very affordable,
to help you with your Fall 2009 communications challenges as:

• Swine flu is escalating
• Budgets are tight
• Staffs are reduced
• Resources are limited

Here they are:

1) Write a full crisis communications plan in just 2-day at 4 locations across America.
• Listen to a 2 minute explanation
• Download a full brochure
• Get more details at www.crisiscommunicationsplans.com
• Call 985-624-9976 to talk it over with Gerard
2) Prepare for your Swine Flu communications with a new teleseminar on demand.
It is available for listening when you are ready for it. Simply place your order now.
• No bad phone connections - No juggling schedules
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• Plus, get 15 minutes of private Q & A with Gerard after you listen

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3) Get regular Swine Flu communications updates for Free when you sign up

for the special BraudCasting Swine Flu edition.
Get free audio podcasts delivered directly to your inbox
Sign up for Free at www.braudcommunications.com

I’m here to help. You just need to click before “It” hits the fan.

Gerard

The most fundamental rule of media training that I discuss with every executive is this: “If you could attach a dollar to every word that comes out of your mouth, would you make money or lose money?”

That brings us to Whole Foods and the much publicized letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal, about healthcare reform.

… and in just a bit, we’ll introduce you to new media training concepts for this Austin based company, which include folk-style comparisons to bees, hunting dogs and cow poop.

CEO John Mackey laid out 8 steps that he thinks would help solve the healthcare problems in the U.S. His letter inspired a firestorm of debate, as well as calls for boycotts and a FaceBook page dedicated to the boycott.

On Whole Foods own website there is an active forums section discussing Mackey’s letter, with more than 1,800 discussions on healthcare reform and more than 13,000 posts.

So if we posed the question to Mackey before he wrote the letter; if we posed the question to Mackey after writing the letter; if you posed the question to your CEO, does a letter to the editor like this cause a company to make money or lose money? Is such a letter good or bad for business? Does it cost you sales?

In this case, the answer may be that it is a wash. There is an enormous amount of chatter in the media and on the web about Whole Foods, but the chatter seems equal to the rest of the chatter about the healthcare debate. And while some openly profess that they will not shop at Whole Foods, we can’t quantify how many of them were previous customers, nor can we quantify how many new customers will go to Whole Foods because they agree with the CEO’s point.

But here are 2 things that bother me about this entire issue from a media relations and media training point of view.

1) First, as the media have made inquiries about the letter to Whole Foods, the media relations department has been saying that Mackey wrote his letter as a private citizen and not as the head of Whole Foods. In Texas lingo, where Whole Foods is based, that dog don’t hunt. When you are the co-founder and the CEO of a company, when you use your company’s health care plan as an example in your letter to the editor, when you mention your company by name several times and when your letter discusses the importance of eating healthy food as sold in your stores, there is no separating the man from the business. This was clearly a letter from the CEO of Whole Foods. Meanwhile, the Whole Foods online press room is void of any mention of this national story, although their own online forum is abuzz. Apparently the Whole Foods media relations department is running around like a free range chicken with its head cut off. Trying to separate the writer/CEO from the company he co-founded is pure bull.

2) The second problem is that if you stir up a hornet’s nest ya’ gonna get stung. Mackey makes some strong arguments for his position on healthcare reform. The problem is he stirs the hornet’s nest in his opening paragraphs as he compares the Obama plan to socialism, then he kicks the hornet’s nest one more time for good measure at the end when he gets into a debate of whether “healthcare is an intrinsic right” and whether the rights for “healthcare, food or shelter” are part of the U.S. Constitution.

Had Mackey made his points as, “8 things to consider in the healthcare debate,” there would be little or no firestorm and the 8 points likely would have contained no fuel to ignite calls for boycotts.

I can empathize with Mackey because I can be harsh in what I say and what I write. But you are the CEO and you had to realize there would be consequences. The question is, financially, was it a calculated move and did you even care? We’ll find out as we watch your sales and your stock over the next quarter.

I can empathize with the media relations department because I’ve been put in a fix a time or two by CEO’s who fly off at the mouth. But do you even believe your own B.S.? I don’t think you do? Besides, cow manure is best used as an organic fertilizer and not as a media statement.

Overall, in this case, Whole Foods has stepped in it and the stench will linger on their boots for some time.

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I’ve been wanting to share these thoughts with you since the story first broke about the death of Michael Jackson, but I thought some may consider it insensitive or overtly opportunistic too close to his death. But now that some time has passed, let’s examine what we, as communicators, can learn from the death of Michael Jackson.

The first thing I would ask is whether a Michael Jackson mentality exists in your company and among your executives?

If you consider Michael Jackson, he provided great service to his customers… in other words, his fans loved his music and shows.

At the same time, Michael Jackson did many good works, traveling the world and giving away millions of dollars to charities, especially for children.

But then, there is the negative. The suspicions about whether he had inappropriate relations with children haunts him to this day.

These 2 sides of Michael Jackson polarized audiences.

Furthermore, the death of Michael Jackson, the investigation and the massive quantity of drugs found in his home, indicates that he had a big problem. I would even go so far to say that his advisors probably knew about his dangerous drug addictions and they failed to speak up, take action and do something about it.

I see this very same behavior everyday in corporations, government agencies and non-profit organizations.

Many of you work in organizations that have a loyal customer base and give back to the community, but there are those in your organization that simultaneously do things that raise suspicion… sometimes to internal parties; sometimes to the suspicion of the public.

It is a classic case in which you know that someone needs to tell the emperor that he has no clothes, but no one will.

I’ve seen those in the C-suite lose their temper so outrageously, in meetings, to the point that everyone is afraid to speak up, because no one want to be reamed out next. I’ve known of non-profit executives who own businesses or property on the side and have suspicious dealings with their own non-profit, and they have fired those who have questioned those dealings. In the world of government, there are constantly questionable relationships with vendors.

In the world of public relations, media relations and crisis communications, these are classic smoldering crises.

They also put you in the awkward situation of even compromising your own ethics if you fail to speak up. Yet, you also know that if you do speak up, you could jeopardize your own career and possibly get fired.

So what do you do? My first suggestion is that if you can’t fix the problem, you should start looking for a new job. I’ve challenged my bosses before and faced repercussions. When I couldn’t fix it internally, I decided to change jobs. I knew that eventually the company would pay the price for their bad ethics and misguided deeds. My goal was to be long gone so I wouldn’t be tainted by those bad deeds. After leaving I was happier and I always got a significant raise in salary.

If you do find yourself trapped between bad executive behavior and no prospects for a new job, realize that you, as the communicator, may eventually have your good name and reputation smeared when the scandal breaks, affecting your own future.

Does a Michael Jackson mentality exist where you work? If it does, your crisis communications plan may be need of a serious rewrite. Before you begin the rewrite, consider conducting a full blown vulnerability assessment so you can include all of the smoldering crisis that exists. Chances are there are other people in your organization who know of other misdeeds that you may not know of. Many crisis communications plans are flawed because they are only made to deal with a sudden crisis.

Don’t delay. Act now. Move it to the top of your priority list. It’s only a matter of time before your smoldering crisis ignites and everything goes up in flames.

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