Ep 82 Maria Sharapova Aces Crisis Communications Test March 22

Tennis player Maria Sharapova has tested positive for a banned drug.

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

Maria Sharapopa is one of the greats of tennis. She's won five Grand Slams. She announced on March 7, 2016 that she tested positive for a banned drug. How did she respond to this? What do we think?

Crisis communications.

Folks, I am recording this really the day it has hit the news or 12 hours later. So time will tell whether this strategy was effective. But I have to say her initial crisis communication strategy, I think was utterly flawless. And I want to dissect this in great detail today on the program. Now, a lot of top level athletes get caught using illegal drugs. It's usually a pattern of deny, deny, deny, deny for years. When caught red handed, deny, obfuscate, no questions. Think of Lance Armstrong and the utter destruction to his reputation and career. Well, Maria Sharapova did things completely differently. Now let's get to some basic facts. She tested positive for a drug called Meldonium, not a drug I've ever heard of before. She claims that she used this for health reasons for the last 10 years because she's had some heart problems. There's a family history of diabetes. She's had other health issues. This was prescribed by a doctor. Saying something is prescribed by a doctor doesn't make it okay. Obviously, when you look at the history of illegal drugs and performance enhancing drugs in athletes. But she's doing several things here that I think is extremely smart and applicable to anyone in a crisis. Whether you are a small town politician, whether you are a vice president accused of bid rigging at a construction company. And I want to dissect exactly what it is she does. For starters, she didn't hide. She announced this. In fact, no one really knew what the issue was. Many thought that she might be announcing her retirement once the press conference was scheduled, so reporters didn't have to pull her dragging and kicking to talk about this. That's rule number one of good crisis communications is the more you seem to initiate it, the less likely it is reporters want to extract a pound of flesh from you. The less likely it is that reporters want to just beat you up and paint you as the bad guy, the bad woman in a particular situation. So you can say this is all a contrivance and she just has smarter, more expensive crisis communications managers than Lance Armstrong. But at some point, if someone does something, well, you have to give them credit for it. Someone wins Wimbledon, you don't say, well, they don't get credit. They had good coaches. You actually give them credit for winning Wimbledon. Right now, her career, her long term profitability as a spokesperson for various brands like Nike is at stake. So we're talking about tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars at stake for her personally based on how she manages this crisis and how she gets through with her reputation or what level her reputation is going through. I do want to go through some of the, the specific facts of what's going on here. One of the quotes she says, I take full responsibility for it. So she's not just pointing fingers and blaming. Now, she claims that she routinely checks the list of banned drugs, has been on this drug for 10 years. This drug was never banned until recently. Until last year it was put on a watch list and then it was in fact banned last year. She claimed she missed one reading of it when it was posted. No one else on her team did. And that's how she got caught up. I have no idea if that is credible. I can tell you from a typical outsider looking at this, it certainly sounds believable. Now, this particular drug has shown up, but according to some reports, at least initial reports, you have to take very high doses of it for it to really be seen as something that enhances your performance. Some, some have contended it really doesn't enhance your performance that much. It's not quite as clear cut as, okay, I want to hit 62 home runs this year. I want to be 10 times stronger. I'm going to take steroids and blow up to a balloon. I think for many people that is a lot more clear cut. Now, I'm not condoning illegal drug use, but I am analyzing exactly how she handled this and what she did. Well, other interesting facts that are playing out in her favor. The way the International Tennis Federations handle this is if you test positive once, that's not necessarily released to the public. So she released this even though it wasn't automatically going to come out. That's another thing in her favor. She comes across as extremely open. In general, the public is much more sympathetic to someone who comes across as open and is initiating the issue. She seemed contrite. She does recognize that she has a whole team of people and coaches and doctors around her who ostensibly should have been monitoring this as well. But she didn't just point fingers and say, oh, my coach is an idiot. He was supposed to check this list and he didn't. Ultimately, it's her name on all the trophies from the Grand Slams and other tournaments. So ultimately, the buck does stop with her and she accepted that. Now, she did make a very significant case talking about, she says, quote, I was getting sick very often. I had a deficiency in magnesium, I had irregular EKG results. I had a family history of diabetes and there were signs of diabetes. This drug is apparently used to control those issues. Now, she did have her lawyer available at the press conference saying that this medication brought those conditions under control. Now, there's some controversy whether this is a standard use of the drug. The drug is not used this way or prescribed this way legally in the United States, but it is in other countries. Now, a couple of things happened right away. Nike did put their whole sponsorship on pause with her, as I think they have to do anytime a high profile athlete is involved in illegal drugs or performance enhancing. Let's differentiate. For those of you who only casually pay attention. We're not talking about heroin or cocaine or pleasure enhancing drugs. We're talking about something that could be seen as enhancing a player's performance and therefore giving them an unfair itch, therefore cheating, therefore forbidden. Therefore, typically, if you're caught doing this, you are removed from the sport or put on suspension. Now, again, according to the New York Times, her positive test would not normally have been announced by the International Tennis Federation until the whole adjudication process had been completed. You have the right to ask for a second test. She's waived that right because she's basically saying, well, I was taking that drug, so I know if you tested me again, it would show up. So she's not contending that again, she's coming across as profoundly honest and transparent. Again, we may find out later. And I'm not casting aspersions on her. I really know nothing about her other than I've occasionally watched her play tennis and enjoy her tennis skills. Perhaps she's using all kinds of drugs. Certainly doesn't appear to be the case. And nothing else is tested. And this one particular drug has just gone on the list, even though apparently it has been used by others for many, many times. We'll go into more details on exactly how she handled herself in this crisis and lessons for others. Even if you're not in the world of sports.

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So when I looked at all the comments on the New York times website after 12 hours or so, there were hundreds of comments. Most of them were somewhat sympathetic to Sharapova. Now, perhaps that is because she's a woman. Perhaps it's because she is a woman who isn't seen as having used steroids to have gigantic muscles. I'm not saying that's a fair issue. But also, she does have a fairly good reputation and is seen as a. Is a good spokesperson for major banks and other corporate sponsors and has never been really involved in other scandals to make her dislikeable. So she went into this with a fairly solid reputation and brand. Then again, you could say exactly the same thing about Lance Armstrong, and look how that turned out. What does strike me is her overall demeanor. She seemed contrite. She wasn't defiant. She wasn't attacking the Tennessee industry. She wasn't saying, people are out to get me. She was blaming herself. But she did so in a way to suggest she didn't really think she did anything wrong other than basically not follow some paperwork the right way, because presumably the drug she was taking wasn't really the difference of life and death for her. Perhaps there's another drug that wouldn't be banned that she could use to help her with her ailments. So I think overall she played it extraordinarily well. Now, I didn't see the whole press conference, so I don't know how long she answered questions or how long she was accessible. The one thing you do need to do for the ultimate perfect crisis communications is to stay there and answer every single question a reporter has. If they want to talk for four hours, keep talking. What a lot of people do when they're high profile and in tough situations, they want to make a statement and then leave. And what happens is reporters feel like you're hiding, the public feels like you're hiding, and so they want to dig more and more and more and they want to speculate. What I'm seeing so far in the reports is not that much speculation. It would appear to be an M. Perhaps she's hoodwinked us all, folks. I'm not discounting that. But she does get credit for excellent crisis communications. Now, something happened, she got out front with it. She put her side of the story out. She put it out in a way that was believable, I think seemed contrite. There's a rationale for it, and overall, I think it makes her highly, highly sympathetic. Now, what the governing tennis bodies do, who knows? There's long been criticism, not just of tennis, but of other sports that they were afraid to go after their biggest stars. Well, she's a huge star, not just in terms of rankings, but in terms of her overall appeal. And visibility as a sponsor and frankly as an international celebrity. So the fact that they are willing to test her and reveal that there are positive results does at some level boost the credibility of the tennis, the governing tennis bodies that regulate such matters. So they're going to look pretty good coming out of this. What happens to her if she gets, let's say she gets a four month suspension? Well, she's already injured, she's already taking time off. If she comes back, rehabilitates herself, brings her game back up, switches to other drugs and never tests positive again. My prediction is this becomes forgotten. And that's the ultimate test of great crisis communications, is that no one's talking about it anymore. People forget about it because you have defused the crisis. And that's really what it's all about. That's the name of the game. Time will tell. We'll follow up on this periodically and monitor the situation. If you have any questions about crisis communications, let me know. All you have to do is post your questions right here, wherever you are listening to or watching this program, whether it's on Facebook, our YouTube channel, the blog@mediatrainingworldwide.com or you can always just send me a tweet jwalker. Or you can send me an email infoediatrainingworldwide.com thanks so much as always. May all of your presentations and media appearances in life be a total success.