Crisis Fundamentals ... Never Before So Fundamental
By John Morgan, Regional Managing Director
Greater China, Golin Harris


It has been a very interesting past several months for the GolinHarris in Asia Pacific. In addition to the diverse bodies of work featured in Breakthrough, we managed a half-dozen or more projects we’ll never be able to discuss outside the sanctity of our client relationships.

Here's a sample of the kind of calls a public relations firm sometimes receives:

• A manufacturer is wrongfully accused of product defects by a very tiny NGO with abundant access to new media.
• A manufacturer needs to recall a product line due to a freak defect it never could have anticipated in which the item proves to be flammable in direct, intense sunlight.
• A transportation company experiences the death of an employee and the injury of a customer—in two different Asian geographies on the same day.
• A well-known F&B chain is taken to court by a customer who claims to have ingested a foreign object at one of the company's locations.
• A company fails to deliver on a customer promise, fails in its honest attempt to correct it and then wakes up to find the details of the episode in the paper the next day.

You probably already have a headache just reading about these unfortunate events. The good news, though, is that in all five scenarios, GH has seen clients live to do another day of business. When I look back on why these potentially catastrophic episodes did not explode, the answer is very clear: Every GH client had a healthy respect for the fundamentals of crisis management and the courage to act swiftly and responsibly.

Every one of these clients knows that customers, business partners, analysts, investors, NGOs and the general public hold them to extremely high standards for how a company should react in a crisis—today more than ever before. If any stakeholder group feels they have been slighted, they don’t hesitate to speak up and speak out. And today every stakeholder group has access to communication tools and media that can spread news and complaints faster than ever before, all around the world. This is not one of those "what to do in a crisis" articles. Well, maybe it is. But I’m writing this more as a friendly reminder of the 10 keys to effectively managing a crisis.

1. Candor: State the facts when you know them, accept responsibility and recognize that the problem exists and that something must be done to fix the problem.
2. Leadership: Explain what happened and display appropriate visibility by the appropriate level of company spokesperson.
3. Responsiveness: Respond in a timely and appropriate manner, and if you can, involve third-party allies.
4. Corrective Action: Explain what you’re doing to correct the situation. Also, remember that corrective action should be rational and responsible, yet at the same time should aim to reach beyond public expectations.
5. Compassion: Show the appropriate level of remorse, empathy, regret and/or sympathy.
6. Visible Decisiveness: Ensure that you are seen doing the right thing.
7. Anticipation: If you did your homework in anticipating potential crises, then you already know, fundamentally, how to respond—which means you have more time for the critically important details of your response strategies.
8. Internal Pulse: If you have listened to your employees and engaged them in the process of managing the unfortunate incident, then they have become ambassadors of defense, not finger pointers.
9. Foundation: You have the first aspect of a reputation-insurance policy: Your company has always conducted business by the highest ethical standards so that stakeholders are more prone to empathize with you.
10. Social Responsibility: You have the second aspect of a reputation insurance policy: Your company has been actively involved in its industry and in the lives of its customers … so they are even more prone to empathize with you and come to your defense.

I have delivered these 10 tips dozens and dozens of times over the years, both during training sessions and in the heat of the moment. I used to be amazed how many of our clients didn’t understand them, or worse yet, were not compelled to act on them.

Today, I'm pleased to say I’m amazed how many of our clients live and breathe these fundamentals and rise to the occasion in what may be either a minor annoyance or the beginning of their darkest hour. It is rewarding to know that more and more, communications professionals are among the first that business leaders contact when bad things happen.

So, in conclusion, two thoughts: 1.) Keep up the good work; and 2.) It wouldn't hurt to read that list again.