Forced to break the news yourself

Earlier this week, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Harry and Meghan) broke the news that they were planning on having a more limited role with the Monarchy, in part because they story would have been told by the tabloids.

From a crisis management standpoint, it was important that they broke the news themselves rather than read about it in the tabloids. However, they forgot to inform the Queen and others within their family and consequently stepped out of one crisis and entered another.

I am not sure of the circumstances and I am not familiar with the protocols but I do know that in any crisis you bring your team together to make informed decisions as quickly as possible.

Ideally, they should have thought it through in regards to #Whatif.

• What if the tabloids leaked the story?

• What if the web designer was working on this project in a Starbuck’s and someone saw it?

If they prepared for these scenario’s they would have been in a better position to deal with the crisis, with the support of his grandparents and family?

Sometimes external forces force us to make a difficult and take our story to the media first. It happens a lot in politics or with public figures.

When they made their announcement they also launched their website, which I think was a bit premature since the details of their departure had not yet been approved by the Queen. So I would’ve held off on this rather than give more information for the press to review.

The website is clean and well done. More public figures should create their own websites like this to take control of their narrative and protect their brand. It is a sad reality but in the era of fake news and no news at all, we need to create and preserve our own public record.

There is a lot we can learn from the Royal Family and there is a lot that Harry has learned from his mom and how his mom was treated. That is most likely why it is the decision they made for themself and what let them to create the website in the first place. After each crisis, we need to internalize the lessons learned and prepare for the next crisis. Unfortunately, many of us just don’t plan ahead — We should!

Strategic Relationships

If there is anything we can learn from the recent crises facing General Motors (GM), the Veteran's Administration (VA), Donald Sterling and the Los Angeles Clippers, The New York Times, Target and other companies and individuals facing their own high stakes crises is that it is important to talk to each other. 

As children, we learn that if we lie we will get caught, if we cheat we are only cheating our selves. So as business leaders, it is important to follow the rules and play by the rules. To engage your employees and the communities in which you do business.  Work hard at developing working relationships, not just in the board room, but on the court or course.  Make friends now so that if a crisis ensues, you will be prepared to respond and others will come at your defense. But most importantly work to minimize the risk of any crises by devoting the resources in developing strategic relationships. 

Respond to a crisis. Don’t react.

It does not matter if it is an employee-error, high profile litigation, government investigation or industrial accident, if something happens a response needs to be immediate, decisive and strategic.

When faced with a crisis, damage to a company or individual’s reputation can be devastating.  Business executives must be ready to respond to protect their reputation, employees, shareholder and brand.

To prevent a crisis it is always helpful to be prepared and have a plan in place however, there are many companies who fail to plan for potential crises.  Consequently, many companies react to a crisis rather than respond.

When companies react they are most likely not thinking through the impact of their response and action in leading to that response. At a minimum then, companies should have a public relations firm on retainer or at least on the tip of their mind when something happens. 

When chemicals spill or things explode - Respond, don't React

Crises happen!  In the past few weeks, we have seen a chemical spill that cut off tap water for 300,000 West Virginians and a cruise line that had to cut its trip short after nearly 700 passengers and crew fell ill with vomiting and diarrhea.’ 

And the best way to deal with a crisis is to plan for it so it can be prevented or at least any potential damage caused by whatever the crisis is, minimized.   However, if you don’t plan for a crisis, and we can prepare for everything, here are a few tips to remember, no matter what:

The Response

When a crises occur your team needs to quickly assess the facts and determine the best response given the situation.  For the company and government in West Virginia, the response should have been immediate. But in some instances the response should be not respond at all – Especially if it is over social media. Proper monitoring should flag anything to be concerned about on line and in real-time. But just because someone posts something about you, your company or your CEO does not mean you have to respond, in fact, you shouldn’t. You don’t want to start a debate on line and feed a discussion that could potentially be more damaging than just one post.

The response in West Virginia should have been direct and done in person.  The response for the cruise line should have been through statements, press releases and on a website.

Who speaks for you?

The CEO may not always be the best person to respond to a crisis. It really depends on the issue, but perhaps there is someone else that should respond or at least has more knowledge to thoughtfully respond. This could be a front-line employee or someone with direct experience with the issue.   Many people want to hear directly from the CEO, so have the CEO be prepared but be prepared to find another spokesperson.

In the case of the chemical spill, the Governor and Mayors of the affected communities should be the face of the solution holding those responsible for the spill accountable. The CEO of the company involved should also be the public face, attending press conferences and town halls. In the case of the cruise line, any statement should be from the CEO.

What do lawyers know about your reputation? 

Don’t let your team of lawyers have the final say on how you communicate external messages. From the beginning, even before a crisis occurs, the legal and marketing departments should meet frequently to foster a solid working relationship and understanding of what each other does. Messages should also be shared with legal and often have legal sign off on statements. But the liability concerns a lawyer may typically have should not prevent a company from dealing with the issue directly and otherwise jeopardize the company’s reputation. Limiting a response may open yourself to more questions and further expose you to reputational risk.

 The bottom line

When an event occurs, you need to respond promptly, effectively and efficiently.  But before anything happens, a company should set up a monitoring system to mind the chatter, engage your employees and service your customers to prevent or preempt something from happening. In addition, a company should have a rapid response plan in place should something happen.

And finally, the best way to limit your risk to is know where you are weak and where crises may emerge – and then to plan accordingly. 

A damaged reputation

Effective crises management can mitigate risk and exposure due to damage to your brand caused by executive and employee misconduct, bankruptcy, disasters, cyber-terrorism and as my children’s preschool teacher would say, “bad choices. 

Most companies have insurance coverage that is intended to insure their company’s assets and protect the company’s brand.  But for politicians like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, their only insurance is their reputation and the relationships they have worked so hard to build to get them where they are.

Christie and his staff made bad choices.  Just as ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, ignorance of the actions of your inner circle is no excuse not to stand as a leader, accept their action as your own, apologize and work to repair the damaged caused by your administration -- Whether you knew about it or not.

But Governor Christie waited to long to act.  He waited to review the findings of an investigation, saw the potential damage the findings will cause him and then decided to step up. He apologized and is working to rebuild his reputation, by firing key staff involved and making a very public apology to the Mayor of Fort Lee, NJ -- in person.  

While his opponents will continue to keep the focus on the Governor and the bad choices of his staff, they should really let the investigation take its course and respond to what emerges from that to give their efforts additional credibility rather than making this purely political.

Time, however will help heal Christie’s reputation. If he has national political aspirations, he then has time to re-focus his energies and rebuild any loss to his reputation. His advocacy following Hurricane Sandy and the other promises he will deliver on over the next few years will outweigh the damage done in closing The GW Bridge. Time repairs ones reputation if you take the time to do it right.

But for those who took the fall in Christie’s inner circle, that road will be more difficult to recover.  We all need some insurance to protect our reputation and our livelihood.  We all need to take steps to build our own inner circle of trusted advisors and a community of friends who can speak out in our defense, hold our hands in times of difficulty and help us out of a difficult situation.  His former staff member’s now must work to re-build their reputation while their former boss continues on an upward trajectory. They must re-evaluate the lessons they learned from this situation and try to turn it around into a positive direction so that they too can move forward.

10 Tips to Preserve Toronto Mayor Ford's Reputation

1. Apologize.
2. Fix the problem.
3. Share your lesson - Make it a teaching moment.
4. Stay the course.
5. Fight back only if you have something to fight for
6. Make good.
7. Stop the rants.
8. This is not about you anymore, it is about Toronto.
9. Move on.
10. Work on re-building your reputation.

When Politicians Lie...

.... They get caught.  Toronto Mayor Rob Ford knows that now when he faced reporters earlier this week asking them to re-ask a question they asked him in May. "You asked me a question back in May and you can repeat that question," Mr. Ford told a bunch of journalists earlier this week as reported in The New York Times. He then admitted that he did indeed smoke crack cocaine.  Also last week, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R) was accused of plagiarism, denied it and finally this week admitted what happened. (Although to his credit, he also came out with a plan for addressing the situation.) Rolling Stone magazine released their "Top five political excuses of all time" earlier this week and unfortunately we keep hearing these excuses from our elected leaders.

To a political figure there is no worse punishment than a damaged reputation. The longer a person works to cover up something the more damage they will do to their reputation. As a result, here are 5 tips to help politicians out of a sticky situation:

1. Don't lie.  If you do lie or misrepresent something, speak out of turn or make a mistake, quickly admit it, apologize, work to resolve the issue and move on to the next issue.
2. Don't try to cover it up, it will only make things worse.
3. Don't react. Re-evaluate the situation and respond quickly but thoughtfully.
4. Don't dodge the media. Focus on the facts and process.
5. Seek the advice of an attorney and public relations professional before things get out of hand.

When a Law Firm Fires The Governor's Wife

Tonight Lockhart/Gardner fired the Governor's wife. It was actually tonight's episode of The Good Wife, on CBS and in tonight's show, the partners found out that Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) was planning on leaving the law firm to start her own and take with her some of Lockhard/Gardner's largest clients, not to mention a number of associates and lead investigator. There is a lot to learn from watching a TV show. I get that every now and then from watching the Kardashians.  However, this one hits closer to home in terms of how I like to help clients, faced with high profile issues affecting their reputation -- as a lawyer, for a law firm and even for the Governor.

From an employer perspective....

• Once information is learned about an employee that would warrant firing them. before acting based on emotion an employer should have all the facts, or at least enough to make a decision on high profile employment issues.
• However, once the decision is made it must be communicated quickly and efficiently.  Today, Twitter is the best and quickest medium.
• Before a tweet is sent, a firm or company should already have influential people following them - Work hard at pro-actively building upon your social network.
• Invest in client relations. Today, law firms are too big, lawyers are too isolated and legal bills are too high. Business today is based on personal relationships, not on big law firm names. It is important to ensure your clients know that you are laser focused on their work -- So represent them as if they are your only client.
• Work hard to communicate with your employees so these situations can be avoided in the future.

Good thing they had a public relations counselor waiting in the lobby to begin work on defending a major law firm against The Governor-elect's wife.

From the employee perspective...

• Make sure you are also following the law as you prepare to leave your employer.
• Be proactive in regards to getting everything in order, including notifying those that you can legally notify and what messages you are communicating in leaving.
• Have a website ready to go, in addition to social media -- most likely Twitter and Facebook but also LinkedIn.
• Know who the reporters are covering your industry and those of your clients, and make sure they know and trust you as a resource.

From the Governor's standpoint...

• Be prepared with a statement but don't communicate it directly.
• If confronted and asked in person stay on message.
• Answer the questions directly and bridge to another issue.
• Address the issue, don't avoid it.
• Distance yourself from the business of others, particularly those that you are close to.
• Ensure the public that this issue remains a separate issue outside of your work in the state and that you remain focused on the issues before you.

Regardless of which side you are on, make sure you have the necessary relationships with people to help you should you need it.  This includes lawyers, accountants, doctors and strategic public relations counsel. Trust is vital to the success in any business and we work hard to establish it. It is even harder to rebuild in the wake of crisis.  As we learned tonight, "politics leads, the law follows." Whatever comes your way, it is important to be prepared and know those that can help you should you need. it.