Gulf coast native Gerard Braud at Grand Isle, LA
Gulf coast native Gerard Braud leads the discussion.
Before you open your mouth to a reporter, you need to read what Gerard Braud has to say. This media training expert outlines the 29 secrets you need to know before you agree to do an interview with a television reporter, newspaper reporter or radio reporter. Order your copy of Don’t Talk to the Media at http://www.donttalktothemedia.com/
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…
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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.
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.
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.
To subscribe to the BraudCast and listen to this as a podcast, click here.
Here’s a new warning about the Swine Flu. Beware if you work in an organization where everything is quickly going back to normal and you’re being told to cease all communications related to the Swine Flu.
The reality is the Swine Flu doesn’t appear to be spreading at catastrophic pandemic rates, but in the world of media relations, crisis communications and employee communications, you should be doing 2 things:
First continue writing any unwritten communications you may need to eventually issue as it relates to the swine flu.
Secondly, convert everything you have written into templates that you can easily access and use for similar disasters… everything ranging from other pandemics, to bio-terrorism to mass casualty events… and definitely have your messaging ready should the Swine Flu escalate in the near future or later, during the 2009 flu season.
Swine Flu is a classic smoldering crisis that would involve communications about precautions, policy regarding infections, infection notification, death from infection, and all clear communications. In Tuesday’s Swine Flu teleseminar I’ll be getting into each of these more in depth.
Also remember my admonition to you just 2 weeks ago when this story broke – now is when you should be requesting the time and budget you need to establish a holistic crisis communications plan and system. PR people often fail to be opportunistic. Trust me, people in other departments, like Risk Management, are being opportunistic. Not only are they being opportunistic, but they’re also preparing for the future because pandemics affect the profits of companies when workers can’t work.
Classic crisis and post crisis behavior is for organizations and individuals to say, “Wow, I’m glad that didn’t happen here.” Then they return to normal operations and do no further planning until the next crisis. Numerous surveys indicate that after events like Hurricane Katrina and the Virginia Tech shootings, most communications departments and most organizations did nothing to prepare for their own crisis of a similar or lesser magnitude.
Always remember that the worse time to write messages about a crisis is when you are in the heart of the crisis. The best time to write messages about a crisis is on a clear sunny day when emotions are low and logic is high.
Swine Flu and Crisis Communications are our topic this morning.
Two of the worst classic behaviors of crisis communications are beginning to take shape as we get several days into the Swine Flu hysteria. So I come to you today with warnings so that you can look for these behaviors, then I want to give you actual steps to help stop them dead in their tracks, then I want to give you steps you can take to set the stage to keep them from happening in the future.
The first behavior is managing rumors, which is harder to control than ever before because of Social Media and web communications.
The second behavior is what I call Alexander Haig syndrome, which we I may be renaming to Joe Biden syndrome.
First let’s address rumors. Good communications is about how do I want my audience to behave. That needs to be the goal of all of your communications. Not listening to rumors and going to officials sources is the behavior we want out of our audiences at this time, be that audience media, employees, customers, hospital patients, school children, parents, citizens.
My wife works at a school where the rumor e-mails started pouring in yesterday. All were e-mails forwarded from a friend warning that there were secret cases of Swine Flu that the hospitals, schools and government were not telling us about.
This is exactly why I always preach that in crisis communications you have one hour or less to begin your own communications and why making this one hour deadline means stockpiling a massive quantity of communications templates that you can access quickly. This is why when I write a crisis plan with a client we often create 100 or more communications templates in a day.
The most effective words that you can use in your communications are, “This is what we can confirm.” You should also include the phrases or admonition, such as, “We ask members of the media, employees and members of our community to avoid repeating rumors and turn to official sources for information.” Then your statement should tell the audience what those official sources are, emphasizing that your website is THE official source for all information related to you and your services.
The ability for rumors to be spread via e-mail and text messaging scares the pants off of me. A rumor can circle the globe several times via the web before your executives even meet to discuss this. In this short amount of time I can’t tell you all I know about writing messages in advance, but if you’d like to know more just call me at 985-624-9976.
The second classic flawed behavior of a crisis is what I call Alexander Haig syndrome, which is where someone who is not a top decision maker tries to take control of the situation and begins making bold, flawed decisions and statements. (This of course is a cultural reference to March 30, 1981 when President Ronald Ragan was shot and Secretary of State Alexander Haig proclaimed he was in charge, even though he was only 5th in line for the presidency.)
But the reality is, good crisis planning and good crisis communications planning must always take place on a calm, clear, sunny day and not in the throes of a crisis, where panic and anxiety are present.
When panic and anxiety are present we experience 2 extremes. The first extreme is decision paralysis where people are afraid to make decisions because the decision may be the wrong decisions. We saw that at Virginia Tech where officials waited 2 hours and 16 minutes to issue their first communiqué, when the reality was that had they communicated faster, they may have been able to save lives because that first communiqué went out 11 minutes after the second assault began, which resulted in 29 more deaths.
The other extreme is the Alexander Haig syndrome, where people make bold decisions and bold statements that historically end up looking stupid. Vice President Joe Biden has done this today, proclaiming on national news that he has told his family that he would not fly, take mass transit or go anyplace where a large crowd may be gathered. None of these are actual recommendations from the U.S. government, nor are they the recommendation of national health experts.
Both Haig and Biden are famous for saying dumb things. We may already be seeing the impact of this behavior as school systems cancel all sporting events to prevent crowds from gathering. The reality is, sporting events could still continue with players playing safely, but perhaps with no crowds are with limitations on crowd sizes.
The test is on decision paralysis or Haig/Biden syndrome come by judging whether or not your leaders are having to make decisions on the spur of the moment or whether most of the decisions were made on a clear sunny day. In the case of Haig, the founding fathers decided on a clear day in 1776 that the Vice President, and not the Secretary of State, is in charge if the President is incapacitated. In the case of Joe Biden today, the Centers for Disease Control and the World Heath Organization have official guidelines that they laid down on a clear sunny day to determine whether it is safe to take a plane, ride a train, use mass transit or go to a crowded shopping mall. Biden’s advice is not only unsound, but could have serious financial consequences by bringing commerce to a halt at a time when the economy is already hurting.
So what steps should you take if you have not already taken them?
Step 1) Hold a Vulnerability Assessment meeting today to discuss all the scenarios of what could happen to your company/school/hospital/agency as it relates to the Swine Flu. That means discussing how you will manage and respond to rumors, and how you will respond if the outbreak progresses.
Step 2) Decide what actions you will take as certain events unfold, such as what are the parameters that trigger certain behaviors and communications. When I write a crisis communications plan, for example, it has levels of severity, designed to indicate specific communications strategies. The Centers for Disease Control, for example has a 6-point scale of severity, designed to trigger key responses. Currently we are on level 5 of the 6-point scale.
Step 3) Start writing. You need communications written today that you may never use, but that is at the ready should you need it. Think of these as fill-in-the blank templates to which you can add the who, what, when, why and how on the day you need them. But today, much of what you need to say on the day of the crisis can be written. You can list agencies that you are coordinating efforts with. You can list precautions people should take. You can create fill-in-the-blank sections that might describe injuries, infections or fatalities should it come to that. I think that today you may be able to write 75%-90% of what you might need to say. This saves you an enormous amount of time when the crisis really hits, allowing you to communicate rapidly and beat the rumors.
Step 4) Do Media Training now. Never let a spokesperson wing an interview. Media are reporting lots of stories on precautions and what if. Many of the spokespeople I see look like deer caught in the headlights; many look robotic and read statements with a monotone voice. Your credibility is higher when your spokesperson looks comfortable and sounds like they know the material. Some spokespeople do well delivering their statements, but then flush it all down the drain when they screw up during the question and answer portion of their news conferences. Many just don’t understand how to stick to their message and how to use those messages to answer a negative question.
Step 5) Schedule a Crisis Communications Drill as soon as possible. It is critical that you test the behavior of your communications team and your leadership team to make sure everyone can work together, follow written plans, and play well together in the sand box while under stress. In the book “Good to Great” the author says make sure you have the right people on the bus and in the right seats – that is, make sure you have the right employees in the right jobs. He goes on to say that if they are not the right people in the right seats that you should get them off of the bus as quickly as possible because of the irreparable damage they can do. Of all the Crisis Communications Drills that I’ve conducted in my career, twice the company had to fire people who performed so poorly in the drill that it was clear they were not the right people in the right job. One of those fired was because he displayed Alexander Haig syndrome and withheld critical information from the Crisis Management Team. The other person was in a public relations position and she was unable to get her first statement release during a 4 hour drill because she had no pre-written templates to work from and because she was focused on too many other things and not focused on rapid communications.
Keep an eye on all of my websites and blogs for the latest information designed to help you. I look forward to seeing your comments on the blog.
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For additional resources please visit these site:
Crisis Communications Resources & Learning
Crisis Communications Plans are designed to help companies communicate quickly.
To learn more about the topic in the above headline, you should listen to all of the Gerard Braud audio program, “Don’t Talk to the Media.” Lesson 11 specifically addresses this controversial topic.
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