What is the message? When a crisis hits, the public only wants to know three things: what went wrong, how it will be fixed, and what will happen to ensure it doesn't happen again. The core message will always be wrapped within these three areas and adhere to the cardinal rules of crisis communications: tell the truth, tell it all, tell it fast.

1. Develop a simple message. No matter how complex the situation, reduce the message to no more than four points.
2. Respond to all questions based on your specific message points. Bring all questions back to these specific message points.
3. Be upfront, honest and trustworthy. You must provide full disclosure and completely own up to the situation in terminology people understand. Now is not the time to hide something. Most strong brands are given at least one chance to make a mistake.
4. Think speed. Be ready to tell all you know and answer all questions as quickly as possible to maintain control over information during a crisis. If you don't have the whole picture, detail what you know. Explain that you are cooperating with all relevant parties and that you are disclosing relevant company records. The burden is on you to do whatever is possible to regain the public’s trust as customers and investors.
5. Empathize. Show you care. You can’t be too robotic or too stiff.
6. Mea culpa. Remember, it may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. Back in the 80's when Tylenol had its crisis with cyanide, it voluntarily took all its products off the shelf. Now it is number one in its category.
7. Remember Machiavelli. "Good news over time, bad news all at once."
8. Explain how the problem will be solved. The public needs to know what the company is doing to remedy the situation.
9. Detail how the company will avoid repeating the problem again. To avoid losing credibility, plans must be clearly made to demonstrate the steps taken to ensure that the problem never happens again and to ensure safeguards are made and enforced. John Hancock developed an external ethics review board to monitor company behavior.
10. Protect employees and customers. In order to save your brand, plans must be made to show what specific actions a customer or an employee can take if they are impacted in any way or if they have questions. Employees must be taken care of first. Their buy-in is critical as they are the lynchpin to stability and the brand’s representatives to your customers.

Thinking of the steps above, designate someone to be accountable and responsible for the situation. If you don't, the media will choose someone to represent you. For example, Martha Stewart--she should have held a press conference to explain the circumstances and what she is doing to rectify the situation. She could have gained flexibility and perhaps even some forgiveness from the public; after all she is a trusted brand. Because she didn’t comment, she let the situation fester, build in importance and allowed herself to became fodder for late-night comedians and media pundits.

Recovering and rebuilding the brand

Companies must plan to emerge from a crisis even while in the midst of trouble. To illustrate this point, Alfred Geduldig, partner at New York-based Geduldig-Ferguson Public Relations, a marketing and branding company, related a story of an airplane that crashed in the Florida everglades. Disaster recovery crews determined that there was a fire in the cockpit. The plane crashed because everyone was fighting the fire and no one was flying the plane. Even in a crisis there must be a division of labor. Companies must figure a way to fly the plane and put out the fire at the same time.

What this means is that companies must restore confidence in the brand. Today's CEOs taking over or restoring embattled companies must:

1. Help employees believe in employment
2. Get employees to believe in the brand
3. Get investors to buy into the company

A few years back, Crayola had a problem with a chemical used in its crayons. Their modus operandi was to do everything they could to protect their customers. To respond to the crisis and convince the public that the crayons were safe, Crayola recalled the product, pulled the questionable chemical additive out and reformulated the entire product line. To further ensure consumers, they partnered with an independent third party, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to produce a study reassuring the public of Crayola's product safety. This added third-party validation to their solution. Today consumers think of Crayola as safe.

WorldCom's new corporate officers are also showing examples of rebuilding and restoring. Important customers are being offered signing bonuses to remain on. Meanwhile, WorldCom is making an effort to separate the integrity of the organization from the original officers without trashing them in public. No doubt, WorldCom wasn't prepared for the magnitude of its crisis, but its attempt to manage through should lead to eventual positive results and perhaps an example for future organizations in crisis.

This article is the second part of a two-part piece on preparing for and managing through crisis.    

[23-Sep-2002]