Force For Good Communications

Tiger Woods' stonewalling lets rumors fester

A quick response and as much transparency as possible are prime articles of faith among crisis managers. Get any damaging news out quickly and completely so you can move on. Letting speculation fester is never a good strategy.

So what are Tiger Woods and his handlers thinking by refusing to cooperate with the police and releasing only cryptic and defensive statements to the public following his late-night collision with a fire hydrant and his neighbor's tree last Friday? The low-speed collision (the SUV's airbags did not deploy)accident left Woods unconscious. By the time police arrived, Woods' wife had pulled him from the SUV, reportedly using one of his golf clubs to smash out a rear window, evidently to unlock the vehicle's doors.

Woods is extremely disciplined in how he speaks to the media and is used to being able to control the public conversation to a greater extent than just about any highly visible athlete or celebrity. So his natural instinct is to go radio silent.

But it isn't realistic to expect the mass media and the blogosphere to simply go away. In the absence of anything resembling complete disclosure, the rumor mill runs rampant. Quite simply, Tiger's stone-walling leads reasonable people to conclude that he's hiding something. Canceling appearances in his own golf tournament and likely all other tournaments the rest of the year will not quiet interest in Tigers' strange behavior.

Woods is an incredible athlete with legions of loyal fans. He's extremely likable and perhaps the only flaw in his public persona is a somewhat cold exterior that comes with his unrivaled mental discipline.

Odds are that the public will learn sooner or later whatever circumstances surrounded the accident Tiger wishes we'd all forget. Better to get it out and move on.

- Jon Harmon

Free sample alert: Excerpts provide sneak peak at Feeding Frenzy

If you haven't already rushed out to get your copy of Feeding Frenzy (makes a great Christmas gift for that p.r. pro or communications student on your shopping list!), you can read an excerpt here.

The link takes you to Jonathan Bernstein's excellent bi-weekly crisis newsletter, Crisis Manager. If you aren't already a subscriber, you should be -- it's free. (If you used to subscribe, but didn't get your usual e-mail with the link, it means you need to resubscribe. Jonathan recently updated his distribution list as he has moved the newsletter to HTML format. That means two things: 1) Anybody wanting to continue to receive it has to resubscribe; 2) The newsletter has a snazzier look, beginning with the issue featuring Feeding Frenzy.

The excerpts in Crisis Manager offer a look at the thorny issues of dealing with a media-savvy plaintiff attorney determined to keep your crisis in the news, and the circus atmosphere of a Congressional hearing.

- Jon Harmon

Crisis Management X01: Never stop learning, become a student of news events

Today's Bulldog Reporter includes an interview with me as author of this blog and author of Feeding Frenzy. The interview focuses, as you might expect, on crisis communications.

Here's one quick take-away: Become a student of current affairs and think about how you'd handle issues in the news:

We don't know what the next crisis will be, but we do know that it's coming. So pay attention to how others are handling crises. Watch the news closely and envision yourself in the crisis. Imagine that you're Robert Gibbs, and ask, how would I handle that? As PR professionals, we should be students of the news, instead of just consumers.

- Jon Harmon

Leslie Gaines-Ross has high praise for Feeding Frenzy

"For all of us anticipating or living through reputation recoveries and crises now, [Feeding Frenzy] is a must read." -- ReputationXchange.com

So writes no less an authority on reputation than Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross, Weber Shandwick's Chief Reputation Strategist and author of CEO Capital and Corporate Reputation. 

A brilliant thinker and a terrific writer, Leslie is a friend, but she plays it straight and true. So I especially appreciate her complimenting my writing:  "His minute to minute descriptions of the frenzy keeps you on the edge of your seat (if that is how you read)."  

- Jon Harmon

Experts make the call: Feeding Frenzy is ‘must reading’

In my previous post, I declared (perhaps immodestly) that the intent of my soon-to-be-available book on crisis communications is to be “interesting as well as informative.”

Feeding Frenzy aims to provide readers with the sense of living through the pressure-cooker experience of handling a deluge of media inquiries throughout the epic Ford-Firestone crisis.

So, does the book achieve those ambitions?

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I’ll leave it to others to be the judge, beginning with perhaps the most widely respected expert on the contemporary auto industry, along with four highly-regarded thought-leaders in the discipline of public relations.

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Here’s what the five of them had to say after reading an advance draft of Feeding Frenzy:

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Feeding Frenzy is a view from the inside of one the most intriguing events in the history of modern industry, the highly publicized drama of the Ford-Firestone conflict. Jon Harmon, a key player in the drama, gives us a clear view from the team that lived with the enormous challenge for months on end. His “lessons learned” are highly insightful and valuable for any organization dealing with serious legal conflict. The detail, quality of writing, complexity of the issues and the interesting cast of characters make this a very engaging and educational read.

- Dr. David E. Cole, Chairman, Center for Automotive Research, Ann Arbor, Mich.

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Jon Harmon’s Feeding Frenzy is must reading both for CEOs and public relations professionals.  His insider account of a real-life business disaster involving two iconic brand names, Ford and Firestone, has all the suspense of a fictional “thriller.” From his perch as a senior Ford communicator, he provides rare perspective on a conflict that engaged lawyers and communicators fighting for mega-stakes – dollars and, even more important, reputation.

- Harold Burson, founding chairman, Burson-Marsteller; named “the 20^th Century’s most influential PR figure” by PR Week.

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The Ford-Firestone dispute marked the start of 21^st century crisis communications, an environment where the court of public opinion is often more important than a court of law. Jon Harmon’s “ground zero” examination of these events at Ford provides invaluable insights and lessons to crisis managers everywhere.

- Jonathan Bernstein, President & CEO, Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc; editor/publisher, “Crisis Manager.”

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Crisis communications expert Jon Harmon cracks open a famous case of a company under fire and comes away with fresh guidance for the corporate executive who wants to avoid costly mistakes and gain the advantage when things go wrong and critics are on the attack. A must-read for C-suiters.

 nnn - E. Bruce Harrison, author, Corporate Greening 2.0  

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Feeding Frenzy has the compelling narrative drive of a novel. The drama comes alive with details of behind-the-scenes maneuvering and intriguing personalities. It delivers important crisis management lessons that executives need: instant news, the role of the Internet, the melodramatic approach to story telling used by today’s ratings-desperate media – and the role trial attorneys and opportunistic politicians play now that reputations and trust can be lost in a heartbeat.

- Gerald Baron, author, Now Is Too Late: Survival in an Era of Instant News.

Coming Soon: Crisis communication book breaks new ground, provides reader with feeling of 'being there'

Does the world really need another book on crisis communications?

Yes! While there are plenty of crisis "how-to" manuals, some of them quite good, they tend to provide examples from numerous case studies to illustrate a few (often simplistic) points. I don't know of a book that details the day-to-day struggles faced by a crisis team during a single, prolonged crisis to really give a reader the feeling of what it is like to live through a pressure-packed test of nerves lasting several months.

But soon there will be. (Drum roll, please.) My book, Feeding Frenzy - Trial lawyers, the media, politicians and corporate adversaries: Inside the Ford-Firestone crisis provides insights and lessons learned in narrative, story form. It's meant to be interesting as well as informative. It will be available in mid-October.

Here's what the publisher's press release says about the need for this book:

Feeding Frenzy provides a candid, telling look at high-stakes crisis management throughout an epic corporate crisis. Unlike other books on crisis communications, Feeding Frenzy is not just a “how-to-manual” but a riveting story providing readers with the feeling of living through one of the most challenging crises in business history.

Facing unprecedented scrutiny from international media, aggressive trial lawyers and an angry U.S. Congress, Ford Motor Company's crisis team tries to understand what’s causing a growing number of deadly rollover crashes involving the world’s best-selling SUV. Ford’s strained relationship with its biggest tire supplier grows increasingly bitter, then gives way to all-out warfare to the delight of the companies’ opportunistic adversaries.

Including never-before-published material, Feeding Frenzy sheds new light on one of the biggest news stories of the decade, revealing media manipulation, political grandstanding and corporate in-fighting. The author includes insightful crisis “lessons learned” throughout the narrative, as well as an Epilogue examining how the rise of social media is transforming crisis work today.

 

In future blog posts, I'll provide more of a sneak preview of Feeding Frenzy, along with some advance reviews.

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Media look for simple angles in crisis coverage

When media are in a rush to deadline (and when aren't they?), journalists look to simplify complex situations. In a crisis, news media will look to industry "experts" for a quick read on causes and trends and quickly settle on the angle that becomes the prevailing media archetype for that tragedy..

Let's look at a number of recent tragedies involving aircraft:

• The "Miracle in the Hudson", the emergency "landing" of a US Air Airbus this past January in the chilly Hudson River -- attention focused on the phenomenon of bird-strikes. (Another subtext that quickly emerged in this tragedy averted -- pilot as hero).
• A month later, coverage of the crash of a Continental Connection regional jet near Buffalo, N.Y. at first focused on pilot fatigue and then narrowed to a focus on under-paid pilots flying regional carriers' jets, including subsequent Federal NTSB hearings.

• The disappearance over the Atlantic June 1 of an Air France Airbus created a frenzy of speculation that faulty air speed monitors might have been at fault. Carriers rushed to inspect and replace air speed monitors on their Airbus jets.
• The latest air tragedy involving a helicopter and small plane at low altitude over the Hudson has focused attention on the crowded airspace above Manhattan and other places served by sight-seeing helicopters and small aircraft.

Once conventional media wisdom has settled on the angle to be explored, questions will begin to ask "what did you know and when did you know it," as in the Air France tragedy. The facts are by no means all in, but coverage has centered on a single angle for several days and viewers and readers are getting bored. So media turn to question executives at the company in the middle of the tragedy who surely knew about the "problem" much earlier and should have taken action to avoid the accident. (I don't have any first-hand knowledge of this case, so I'm not making any judgments about how Air France execs acted or should have acted. But it's a lesson learned that media will jump in with tough questions for management long before the dust has settled.) 

In an emerging crisis, identify possible lines of inquiry journalists may pursue as they scramble to find the angle that fits your situation. Connect with experts inside the company who may understand causal factors behind the crisis. Working with authorities as appropriate, help steer media away from angles that clearly are red herrings.

But be careful not to speak definitively until the facts are really known. Again and again, this trips up crisis managers -- remember: Much of what you know to be true in the first hours of a crisis will turn out to be untrue. Stay calm and stay on message even as journalists press for confirmation of the simple angle that neatly characterizes your messy situation.

- Jon Harmon

Was Sanford's tearful apology way too much?

When is the emotional apology the right move to put scandal behind and to stop a spreading crisis?

I'm thinking of this, of course, because of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford with his tearful apologies this week to his wife and family, his staff and supporters, and to all the people of his state. 

Sanford, of course, had much explaining to do after his mysterious disappearance left aides and family in the dark, only to turn out that he'd taken a trip to Argentina to meet up with a woman with whom he had been having an illicit affair. In the less-than-proud tradition of disgraced politicians undone by their hormones, Sanford stood before the cameras and apologized. To his credit, he did not try to justify his actions and he seemed remarkably candid in his remarks.

But did he have to go on for so long? Did we really need so many details? Wouldn't he have been better off following this simple "Force for Good" advice for coming clean about a mistake: "Be honest. Keep it brief. Get off stage. Move on."

Others were quick to question whether his apology was the correct move in terms of crisis management.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, loudly argued against the wisdom of the Sanford apology (and in terms that would have gotten a male op-ed writer in serious trouble):

"Perhaps someday one of these VIPs in trouble will figure out that on these occasions it's not a great thing to go public looking like a pathetic dolt -- the kind of man who would induce instant headache and skin crawling in any woman imagining him as a lover."

Rabinowitz would have had Sanford make a straight-forward admission of the affair, without apology, capped with this closer:

"So let's understand this. I plan to straighten my tie, button my jacket .. and go forward to do what I have to do. Life's complicated, ladies and gentlemen, but there's work to be done. I'll have nothing further on this, count on it."

The long, drawn-out, tearful apology didn't score well with Cokie Roberts or Sam Donaldson on ABC's Good Morning America.

"It will sink him," Roberts said about the apology, not the affair.

Donaldson disparaged Sanford for taking questions from media and answering in agonizing detail. "He's a cooked goose," Donaldson said, adding that he gives higher marks to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who made a brief statement and a quick exit in admitting an extramarital affair earlier this month.

Of course, every situation is unique and it's always easy for the "experts" to criticize.

One thing is clear. If Sanford wants to keep his job, he needs to keep his head down and work through the issues and privately work with his wife on saving their marriage. No more apologizing; no more details; no further comment even as journalists work to advance the story. ("Who is the mysterious woman in Argentina? How did they meet? etc.)

It's still might not be enough to overcome his erratic behavior -- the sudden disapearance, the phony story about hiking -- that had to make voters wonder about his suitabiity to govern.

Fortunately, the public has a short attention span. The sudden death of Michel Jackson has blown all other news off the radar screen. Sanford should make use of the respite and keep quiet.

- Jon Harmon

 

Swine flu takes a bite out of pork industry: perception, reality and "efficient markets" myth

The pork industry is desperate for politicians and the media to quit referencing "swine flu." But A-H1N1 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?

The World Health Organization, the Food Standards Agency and other authoritative agencies the world over continue to tell the public that this strain of flu is not spread by the consumption of infected pork. But pork sales, and the stock prices of pork sellers such as Smithfield Foods, are down sharply.

It's not hard to see why the public isn't taking any chances with the "other white meat." The media has, of course, clamped onto the storyline of the swine flu outbreak as a deadly menace of potentially Biblical proportions, often invoking the memory of the global flu pandemic of 1918 that killed tens of millions worldwide. Of course, medicine has advanced a bit since then..

(Meanwhile, countries such as Russia and China, have used the scare to enact protectionist trade barriers to North American pork exports. Never let a good crisis go to waste, eh comrade?)

So while the reality is that pork is safe, the widespread perception is that pork is best avoided, at least until the flu scare passes. This is not a trivial distinction. Perception drives consumer behavior.

There are still those on Wall Street (and perhaps your IR department?) who cling to the notion of the "efficient market." Press coverage, good or bad, according to this theory does not affect stock prices because the stock market is super-efficient at sorting through hype and nonsense, driven only by the facts, ma'am. Proponents of the efficient market theory look down their noses on media relations practitioners' quaint fascination with positive story placement and the moderation of negative stories. "It doesn't matter," the old-school IR types sneer, "the market is efficient."

Even if you still believe that Wall Street is all-knowing (an absurdity in post-meltdown 2009, if you ask me), you still have to concede that financial markets must respond to changes in consumer demand. Consumers are bombarded with far more information than they can process so they often make decisions based on superficial impressions and perceptions. Perceptions drive consumer behavior.

So yes, it's incredibly important that a corporation's messages be succinct, clear and memorable. That's true when you are brand-building and it's even more true when you are defending a brand in a time of crisis.

- Jon Harmon

Crisis watch: What were they thinking? Low-flying jet over Manhattan a scary reminder of Sept. 11

It had to be the least cost-effective photo-op in history.

The incredibly ill-advised repeated fly-bys at low altitude just south of lower Manhattan by one of the Air Force One jets and an accompanying F-16 fighter jet carrying a photographer was perhaps the worst use of tax-payer dollars this year -- and that's saying something!

Let's review the math: Cost of Air Force One in fuel and crew hours + cost of F-16 in fuel and crew hours + cost incurred in lost productivity by thousands of Wall Streeters who evacuated their workplaces thinking another terrorist attack was coming + cost of stress, anxiety and the reawakening of painful memories of New Yorkers reliving their darkest day + cost of litigation sure to result from those claiming injury during the unnecessary evacuations ... am I missing any costs?

(How about the inestimable cost of lost reputation for the new Adminstration? While clearly not the direct fault of the President, it will be easy for detractors to use this misstep as evidence of inexperience.)

And what did we taxpayers get out of it? Some real snazzy, no doubt, photos of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty ... that will never be used because they would be a painful reminder of a stupid exercise that embarrassed the Obama Administration.  

Crisis Communications Lessons Learned: Think through carefully the downsides of any photo-op, publicity stunt or other attention-getting exercise. Notify local law enforcement, community associations, etc. to help avoid surprising people in the area of your event. (I have yet to hear a good reason why the Air Force One fly-by couldn't have been widely pre-announced, making it clear that the President would not be aboard.)   

And if things do go awry ... step in quickly to fix things, take responsibility and offer a heart-felt apology. Unfortunately the White House gets poor grades for its response. According to the NY Times:

The White House did not issue a statement, or a formal apology, for more than six hours. At first, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, dismissed questions, saying: “You might be surprised to know I don’t know of every movement of Air Force One or what happens to it.”

You have to do better than that. And as I wrote here back in Feb. 2007, if you sincerely offer an apology, it means you're still sorry even after you have long grown sick of people reminding you about it.

-- Jon Harmon