Ep 50 The Crisis Communications Grand Gesture Feb 19 16

When a crisis hits, will a grand gesture make people forget.

Speaking the show about effective, speaking in public, to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

The Chipotle food fast food chain has been in the news a lot for making people sick, for having health problems, contamination with their food. And this has happened on numerous occasions. It's harmed them and their reputation and their corporate reputation as well. How have they handled it? Something they did recently was a what I would call a grand gesture. They're shutting down all of the restaurants for one morning so that there can be an all hands on meeting to talk specifically about food safety and how to do things better. I give them positive marks for this. They do get some credit for doing this in a way that shows the whole world, hey, we're paying serious attention to this. So it was an important part. I do agree with a lot of the critics of Chipotle who say here they are trying to, in some of their ads, some of their very famous cartoon ads where they make fun of corporate farming, implicitly making fun of people like McDonald's and Burger King and attacking GMOs G genetically modified food products and essentially being holier than thou. But Meanwhile, forget the GMOs. You've got a basic problem of contamination of E. Coli, other contaminants in the food, and it's making people wrenchingly sick. So there are a lot of people who are kind of laughing at Chipotle for this because in fact, folks, this isn't the place for a scientific debate. But there's not a lot of scientific evidence that GMOs actually harm people. There is a tremendous amount of scientific evidence that if you ingest E. Coli bacteria, you're gonna get sick. And in fact, it could kill infants. So Chipotle kind of set itself up for being holier than thou. Here's where I do criticize the Chipotle organization. You know what? It sets us up perfectly for this segment.

Body language.

By body language, what I mean is in this case actually having a body when there's a crisis. Have your CEO come out same day, make a statement and answer all questions. Now, it's still relatively rare for most organizations to do that, but I believe it's the best thing to do in terms of a crisis, to show people you're not hiding, that you're doing something very proactively. The other thing I recommend, which I did not see from Chipotle, and I could be wrong, forgive me if I did, but I looked, I didn't See, it is. I didn't see same day a video on their website of the CEO saying, here's exactly what happened, here's why it happened, we're sorry, here's what we're doing to change things. I believe that that should be very much a part of any crisis management plan and what any organization, big or small, should be doing these days. Because to just put out a press release, to put out text is very weak indeed. We're going to go into even more details right now on some of the specifics of what I believe should happen during times of crisis.

Crisis communications.

First thing, when a crisis hits your organization, you need to come out quickly. People talk about Tylenol from 30 years ago and how well they handled the Crisis. They took 24 hours before they responded. These days, Tylenol company would go out of business, would be vilified if they waited 24 hours. You need to respond within an hour, number one. And you need your. If it's a huge crisis, you need your CEO being the spokesperson, not some low level flack or a hired spokesman. And hey, nothing against hired spokespersons. I'm a hired spokesperson from time to time by companies. You need the person who's ultimately accountable, the CEO, the head of an organization, to speak. That person needs to clearly say, here is exactly what happened as we know it. Don't sugarcoat it. If 2 people are dead and 15 people are missing, and you think all the 15 might be dead, don't speculate. Say 2 people are dead, 15 are missing. Do not speculate. Don't try to make things sound better than they really are. Don't try to make things sound worse than they really are. Stick to the facts. And then you've got to tell people exactly what you are doing. Let them know that you're taking some action. Now, when a crisis first hits, maybe the only thing you're doing is you've called the local, state and federal authorities, maybe you've done an evacuation. But you can't be seen as just hiding and cowering in a bunker somewhere. That's the worst possible thing for your reputation. Because the thing about a crisis is you're going to get massive, massive amounts of media attention. And how you perform in a crisis is often what defines you in people's minds, your customers minds, investors mind, the public's mind, the media's mind, for not just a day or a week or a month, but years, decades, sometimes for your entire career is defined by what you said during a time of crisis. Look at the example of Tony Hayward, the former CEO of bp, when he said during their time of crisis, hey, I want my life back. Implication, he wants to get back on his yacht. That sullied his reputation now, yeah, he's still rich. He has another great job in a different company, but still, that's part of why he was forced out of BP because of comments made during a crisis. We'll go over more details of exactly what to say in just a moment.

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So the basic principles of crisis communication, you react quickly. You have your top leader come out. You try to have a statement within an hour. You talk about the facts as you know them. You talk about exactly what you are doing. If someone has been harmed or injured, you can express sympathy to them and their families without expressing any admission of guilt. And let people know what you are doing proactively to solve the problem. If there's still a fire going on, talk about all the things you're doing to put out that fire. If there's a leak or some other damage, talk about everything you're doing to try to help anyone who's been harmed. And you must come across as accessible. That's why it's a huge mistake to say, well, we'll only take three questions or we only have five minutes. You want to be there for the media and act like you're not hiding at all. Some of the best crisis communication strategies is to simply talk it all out, let people know, I'm answering every question. I'm not hiding anything. One of the best examples of this from the political world is from many, many years ago. The Senator John McCain was a part of the Keating Five scandal involving undue influence of wealthy SNL owners and giving money and having access to politicians. And John McCain was very much involved with this, admitted wrongdoing, but he handled it differently from a lot of other politician scandals. He said he was sorry, said he was wrong. He apologized, and he answered every single question. He would spend hours in a press conference with the reporters. He'd practically follow them out of the press conference room into the parking lot, continuing to talk to them to the point where they finally said, okay, enough already. I'm tired of talking about it. And he just made the issue uninteresting. So by the time he ran for president, it was no longer an issue. Reporters felt like they didn't have anything else to talk about. He just talked it all out. He was accessible. He admitted guilt. Now I understand there are times if a crisis has just erupted for liability reasons, you can't admit that you're wrong. But you can always tell people what the facts are as you know them. You can always tell people what you're doing to try to make the situation better. And you can always say, I don't know. People feel like, oh, if I don't know the question, I can't or the answer, I can't hold the press conference or I can't talk to the media. Well, that's not true. There's nothing wrong during a time of crisis to say I don't know. We're spending all of our energies right now focusing on putting out the fire or whatever it is. Don't be afraid to say I don't know simply by being there, listening, being responsive, answering. At some level, you get credit. Now you can't say I don't know if you really do know and you're afraid it's going to make you look bad. You can't lie generally and get away with it and come across well. But don't be afraid to say you don't know. It's far better to say you don't know then to guess. Guess incorrectly and have made a huge mistake. For those of you interested in crisis communications, I do have an online course in detail. Go to the online course section at Media Training Worldwide and you can watch the first couple of videos on that subject at no charge and go from there.

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Okay, it's time for questions from you. This comes in from Raginesh Pandurangan. Excuse me, I hope I'm at least getting close to your name. And he writes in on he's one of my online course students. He says this about technical presentations. How do you come up with stories for technical presentations? It's much easier for presentations on public speaking, money, motivation, etc. This is a question I hear quite frequently from clients. Well, tj, I'm just giving a technical presentation. I'd love to give stories, but it's impossible. I'm going to respectfully disagree. A story doesn't have to be as dramatic as someone being flat on their back and down to their last diamond about to starve to death. And this transforming event have no A story is simply you having a conversation with one person, a colleague, a client, a customer, about a real problem and how it was solved, how you felt about it and where you were at the time. That's all a story is. Behind every number there is a particular story. So, for example, if you know, if you're the CFO of Red Lobster and your numbers have gone up and down 1 or 2% every day and every quarter for the last three years, and boop, now they're up 33% sales in a week. Not every single number is of equal importance. The fact that sales went up 33% is more interesting than the fact that it went up or down 1% every week for the last two years. So tell people the story behind why it went up. In that particular case, as happened in early 2016, Beyonce referenced red Lobster in a song and that generated so much attention for Red Lobster, their sales went up 33%. Talk about Beyonce, what she did at the super bowl, why people were captivated, what she said. Tell the story. Again, if you're telling me there's absolutely no story involved, what you're really telling me is you've never had a single conversation with anyone about the issue, the technical issue you're trying to convey in your presentation. If you've never had a single conversation about it, and no one in your organization has ever had a single conversation about it, what that tells me is it's really not that important. Leave it out of the speech. Just put it in a PowerPoint slide that you hand out to people, that you email to people. But don't stand up and talk about it. Don't tell yourself I have to tell an interesting, fascinating, funny story about every point that's going to psych you out. Instead, look at the technical point that you're trying to convey and then ask yourself, why is this an issue? Why should anyone care? If I had to have a conversation with someone about just this one point, how could I talk to them about it? Referencing any other conversation I've ever had with someone, why it was a problem, why it was an issue, why what happened before was worse, why is it better now? And that is your story. Again, the fundamental elements. A setting could be your office, could be the warehouse floor, character, one other person you talk to, dialogue. What did that person say to you? What did you say back? Problem. All of us solve problems all the time. They're not necessarily earth shattering problems, but their problems. How was it resolved and how did you feel about it? That's all there is to a story. Thanks so much for your question, by the way. If you have questions, send them to me. Jwalker on Twitter infoediatrainingworldwide.com on email. You can also post the questions anywhere on social media where you're listening to this program or watching it on Facebook, LinkedIn or at mediatrainingworldwide.com as always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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