In the Crisis (1): 5 Tips on Effective Communication

I've been thinking about leading in crises for several years now. In my work as a college professor and later, a parish priest, I have seen crises arise in institutional lives and personal careers. Like you, I have seen crises of major proportion hit corporations large and small.

I have watched dumbstruck as huge companies like British Petroleum,  the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, and of course, United Airlines, make the same mistakes over and over and over again. I have been baffled by politicians who seem incapable of learning from the gaffes of their predecessors.

I have seen administrators of small colleges try techniques with a proven failure rate. I have seen bishops and priests flounder over the smallest of matters.

I have made these mistakes, too.

On rare occasions, I have also seen people rise to the occasion and turn a crisis into an opportunity for growing trust with the public, improving a brand's reception, and even increasing influence.

Here are 5 tips on crisis communication that I've learned, and still use in my own work.

1. Tell the truth.

It's not all spin, all the way down. Anyone paying attention to the last election cycle in the United States has learned that. Well, outside the media anyway. Members of the fourth estate, whether established or marginal, continue to demonstrate again and again why people trust them less than they do politicians. But that's for another blogpost. For now, when a crisis comes along, tell the truth.

Yes, Agent Scully, the truth is out there. These days, it is often captured on cell-phone video. And if you don't tell the truth up front, someone else will--with pictures--and you will be the worse off. It doesn't matter if the truth points to a dysfunctional institutional culture. It doesn't matter if it damages the brand. It doesn't matter if it casts you in a negative light. At this stage, the brand is already damaged and no one is interested in basking in your reflected glory anyway. So let it go; eat some crow. Tell the truth.

2. Tell it all.

Half-measures won't do. My grandmother, a very wise woman, once told me this: "Always tell the truth; never tell all you know." I can think of dozens of situations in which this is really good advice. A crisis is not one of those situations. A partial telling of the story is, quite simply, a cover up. And these days, it is still the case that if the crime doesn't catch you, the cover up will.

Why? The answer is simple. Lots of professional and citizen journalists are looking to take the goliath down. If you leave out details, you're giving them the opportunity to do just that. Take away the opportunity by telling your own story. All of it.

3. Tell it first.

Get in front. Don't let a spokesperson do it for you. Don't dither and give your opponents a chance to frame you. If you're going to turn a disaster into something positive, and this is never guaranteed, you have to take the risk of getting in front of the cameras and microphones, getting in front of your church board, getting in front of your share holders, and telling the whole truth first. Don't let communications gurus spin-doctor the chance away. I promise, the odds of them making things exponentially worse are greater than that they'll improve things. Own it. Tell it. And do it first.

4. Take responsibility.

All of us know of the sign President Harry S. Truman kept on his desk. Or we should. Here it is:

It was a reminder to him that he couldn't pass the buck. If there was a problem that reached his desk, that desk was where the problem stopped.

You're the CEO, the President, the Pastor, the Chair. The buck stops with you. It doesn't stop just short of you. Asserting that the crisis erupted on someone else's watch, and promising to fix the problem won't work. Fixing the problem is important and we'll get to that. But people will only believe you'll fix it if you own the problem in the first place.

Gone are the days when the pater familias was left with a loaded revolver in the smoking room knowing "what needed to be done" to free his family from shame. That's a good thing. But there is something to be learned from the profound sense of responsibility that led to such drastic turns (at least in Victorian pulp fiction). Namely, in the end, it is the job of the leader not simply to share the credit, but also to take the blame. And in a crisis, that's exactly what you need to do.   

5. Apologize once.

Why? Because you only get one chance. We can all think of bad apologies, can't we? Here are three. "I'm sorry you misunderstood my good intentions." That's a blame shifter. In this case, your shifting the blame on to those who want to know more about the crisis for being stupid or uninformed. You know what? Your audience is neither. And they don't want to be insulted. For reasons beyond me, politicians revert to this one all the time even though it never does them any good. Don't insult the people you're talking to.

"I'm sorry but you have to understand. . . ." This is a rationalization. You are about to go on to explain why the crisis is not your fault, why it's not so bad, or why it can and should be justified in the audience's mind. Bad, bad idea. The latest example is United CEO Oscar Munoz's first apology which basically blamed the victim: it only compounded his headaches. It was a spectacular own-goal. There is no rationale that will make the crisis go away. So don't go there in the first place.

And third, "On behalf of . . . I am truly sorry." This is self-exoneration. Only the truly sneaky, even wicked, will throw friends, colleagues, employees under the bus like this. Quite simply, you can't apologize for someone else's action. So don't. You think you'll get to receive forgiveness without ever having to relinquish the white hat. But that's not how it works. Your audience knows it and you should, too, even if only at the level of intuition. So don't do it.

The kicker is, everybody can sniff out a bad apology. Let's face it: they reek so sniffing them out isn't hard. And the only thing worse than a bad apology is the attempt to rescue things with a follow-up apology. Who cares if Oscar Munoz is "horrified," as his second apology insisted? It's too late. We saw the real deal in the first apology. Nobody believes him now and as a result, an opportunity to stablize and repair, and perhaps even grow has been lost. United stocks, as of this instant, are down only 3%; if the sell off slows now they'll be lucky. Still that's a huge amount of money. And there's no calculation that can assess the loss of personal stock for Oscar Munoz. I cannot stress this enough. When it comes to apologies, you only get one shot. You HAVE to get it right.

There are no guarantees that even getting it right will help. It's called a crisis for a reason. But with a good "I'm sorry," there is at least the possibility of getting to a positive outcome. Here's why.

The apology is not the place to shift blame or to rationalize. The apology is the one place where you'll have the chance to regain some sort of legitimacy. The apology is the place where you to tell the truth, all of it first. "Here is what happened. It is not pretty. . . ." The apology is the one place where you get to take responsibility. "I am sorry. This happened on my watch and I am responsible." The apology is the one place where you get to announce what you are going to do. "As of today, we are stopping all activities on x project and reviewing all procedures to identify the problem and ensure it does not happen again."

This will not immunize the leader from a law suit, from calls for her resignation (which may have to be heeded, more on that later), or from other ways of having her feet held to the flames. But only this will open up avenues to redemption in the future. The apology, if it is done once and done right, has the potential to open up space for the leader to act.

In my next post, I'll offer five tips for Effective Action in a crisis. For now, let me know what you think!