Crisis Management: Hospitals vs. Insurers – let’s stop the fighting: Crisis Communications This may be happening in your area and it is happening again in North Carolina. A hospital and insurer Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina are playing a game of chicken over medical care reimbursement rates. In full media cry the two speed […]
Crisis Management: Haiti Earthquake and the Response Dilemma: Crisis response How frustrating for the United States and other nations to be stymied in heartfelt efforts to aid Haiti earthquake survivors in spite of a rapid response. The post-apocalyptic ruins thwarted the most sophisticated relief and rescue for days. No wonder, given the quake crushed Haiti’s core infrastructure […]
Crisis Management: Great Crisis Response Lessons in Action: crisis response The North Carolina Zoo is renowned for wildlife exhibits and international efforts to save war torn zoos in Afghanistan and Iraq and to rescue abused polar bears in Puerto Rico. There is another zoo effort you probably don’t know. When a chimpanzee died at the zoo, how […]
Crisis Management: Good Crisis Response, Poor Internal Comms?: Crisis Response (Written in 2003, but the lessons still hold.) So what do you do when seven people die on your watch? NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe has been facing that responsibility all year since the shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry in February. The blame for the tragedy rests […]
Crisis Management: Good actions need Good Communications in a crisis: Crisis Communications The fallout from Vice President Dick Cheney’s poor communications following his accidental shooting of a fellow hunter should be a warning shot in every executive suite. In fact, this case demands an axiom. I suggest, “Good actions without good communications often fail.” Not only must […]
Crisis Management: Goldman Sachs – Do this – not that: Crisis response When the Securities and Exchange Commission sued investment firm Goldman Sachs for allegedly misleading investors about risky complex real estate securities that cost investors billions and earned others billions how did you react to Goldman’s response? Were you comforted when it insisted it is innocent […]
Crisis Management: Global Crisis Management – Know the Culture!: Co-authored by Prof. Ram Baliga By Ram Baliga and Rick Amme Coke and Pepsi’s struggle to stop a pesticide scare in India in 2006 was a window into an issue critical to all who do business with other countries, to those who plan to do so and frankly […]
Crisis Management: Given BP – Should Your CEO Be Spokesperson: Crisis communications BP CEO Tony Hayward tried and failed as spokesperson for the Gulf oil spill. Why? Goodness knows, this was a CEO-as-spokesperson calamity. Hayward wasn’t temperamentally and constitutionally suited. Once lower-key, warmer executives replaced him then the focus shifted to the spill and its impact rather […]
Crisis Management: Get Your Side In the First News Story: Crisis communications It is YOUR JOB to convey your side in a controversial news story. Not the reporter’s. And not just in any story, in the FIRST story: the one likely to set public perception. Example: A combative New York City reporter called a client, a national […]
Crisis Management: Get to Know Reporters – A Personal Story: Crisis avoidance Business people often despise or at least distrust the news media. As a crisis management consultant – and former journalist – I too occasionally criticize reporters in this column. Some have an anti-business bias and believe they are on a “mission from God” to save […]