Crisis Management: Crisis Management From the Heart: Crisis response Sometimes – sometimes – the best solutions for complex and even frightening public dilemmas come from the heart. I have seen this happen twice during media training. One time, as usual, the client had to solve a mock crisis and defend his solutions to an aggressive reporter. In […]

Crisis Management: Crisis Lessons the Hard Way – Firestone: Crisis response What were the likely reactions to the Firestone tire recall calamity several years ago? If your vehicle had such tires, you worried that loved ones were safe. If you managed a company, you said, “God, don’t let this happen to me.” If you were an employee, […]

Crisis Management: Crisis Lessons Learned From Airline Tragedy: Crisis response Unfortunately and sadly, enlightenment on crisis management sometimes comes from living through a catastrophe. Beatrice Taschanz of Swissair took that traumatic shortcut to wisdom when one of her airliners crashed and killed all 229 people on board. This corporate communications chief now speaks with authority and authenticity […]

Crisis Management: Crisis Lessons From a Store Bombing: Crisis response We learn from the misfortune of others. Let’s go to school on the Lowe’s home improvement store bombings of 1999. One late September afternoon pipe bombs blew up at Lowe’s home improvement stores in Salisbury and Asheboro. The two explosions wrecked shopping areas and badly injured a […]

Crisis Management: Crisis Leadership the U.S. Marine Corps Way: Crisis Response If you are a leader under serious pressure – whether it be product recall, regulatory trouble, management failure, employee violence – you ask yourself (usually in the middle of the night), “How can we survive this adversity?”    If you’ve dodged such issues, you worry about whether your […]

Crisis Management: Crisis and Communications Lessons From Events in the News: Crisis response Read a newspaper or turn on the news and you’ll almost always find a communication lesson embedded in current events, and with the force of being based in reality. Here are some disparate events or articles from 2003 and lessons to be gleaned from […]

Crisis Management: Credibility – How to Avoid Losing It: Crisis communications Speed saves in a crisis.  Lack of speed is the biggest reputation killer I know.  Yet there’s another reputation devastator: loss of credibility Consider what was happening in Tennessee after five million cubic yards of toxic coal-ash from a settling pond burst through a berm during […]

Crisis Management: Consultants Can Sometimes Hurt: Crisis communications The reputation of Martha Stewart is mended. She served penance and public opinion about her rebounded. However, when she was convicted, her case demonstrated at least one thing. The best PR won’t help if you’re guilty. Her case reminded me of a prospective client who, after catching much grief […]

Crisis Management: China Earthquake Response – Stunning and Instructive: From archives Who would have predicted China giving the world a crisis management lesson through its handling of the May 12 earthquake?  Despite an inhumane recent history from Tiananmen Square to Tibet suppression and previous decades of crushing communist rule, the government’s response to the Sichuan temblor has […]

Crisis Management: Can You Respond as Fast as Northern Illinois Univ?: Crisis response Whether you run a corporation, college, or any sizable institution, take a hard look at Northern Illinois University’s response to its February 2008 shooting.  Five students and the gunman died but NIU set a benchmark for action. A partial afternoon timeline according to NIU: […]