Crisis as the New Normal
The only appropriate response to any crisis is always the same: Regret, restitution and reform. We’re sorry this happened. We’ll make whole anyone who’s been harmed. We’ll change so this won’t happen again.
Craig Reiss in Entrepreneur.com provides a thorough and insightful “PR playbook” for how to implement the three R’s. Here, I will only add and advocate that response readiness should become the new normal for most companies.
Four factors contribute to this assessment.
First, the Internet has enabled activists, investigators, regulators, analysts and others including disgruntled employees and unsatisfied customers with easier and faster access to company documents. In short, more eyes are prying more often.
Second, the recent spread of Web 2.0 tools has created an “attention economy” that encourages the reporting of not only mishaps, misdeeds and misrepresentations but also miscues, missteps and mistakes, all with investigative fervor and headlines to match. In short, every errant action is now suspect.
At the same time and for the same reason, there are no more news cycles and thus no interim time periods during which to prepare a response. Operating 24/7 means both all the time and at any time. In short, preparedness is too slow.
Fourth and most recently, the volatility of the equity markets means that more errant events will be reflected in a company’s stock price and thus qualify as “material” events. To such events regulations require companies respond with appropriate disclosures.
In summary, attacks on a company’s reputation are becoming easier, broader and faster with material impacts more likely. To me those conditions suggest that response-readiness needs to be the steady state of a company’s communications capabilities.
Brilliant observations and great addition to the argument. From a crisis management perspective, preparedness has been replaced by norm, and what once was norm is, itself, a crisis in waiting. Thanks for your contributions, Len.
Agree, but let me add something else. Operating a business is, in effect, a decision to live amidst many ongoing crises that must be managed every day. Some crises are much easier to spot than others. For example, a plane crash is an obvious crisis. But some are stealth, slow-burning and unpredictable. One of the hardest things to do is to spot the crisis early on — the needle amidst the haystack. It’s also important not to let crisis preparedness erode your risk tolerance. Extremely risk-averse businesses tend to be less likely to innovate and grow. Another thing….I’m not sure PR people really are the best at crisis management. I’ve always found them to be among the more risk averse — with decision-making bias that stresses staying out of the press, when there are a whole lot of other factors to consider. The recent HP-CEO case may be one of those.
Thanks for your additions, Max. I’ll comment on two. First, I agree whole-heartedly with your observation that crises come in all shapes and sizes, including some that are hard to spot. Maybe, more eyes prying more often will bring them to the surface earlier. Second, your assessment of PR people in crises is correct but a bit unfair; in my experience, a company’s General Counsel, Investor Relations and Government Affairs execs, not PR, are the ones calling the shots.
On another matter, thanks for blogging your recipe for sun tea. Putting cloves in the lemons is brilliant.