Crisis Management: Tucson shooting – what you should learn from it: Crisis avoidance ‘Tis better to overreact than underreact in crisis management. The penalty for doing too little when something goes wrong is often far more severe than the penalty for doing too much. A powerful thought as we ponder how to curb mass shootings like that […]
Crisis Management: Transparency – It Can Avoid a Crisis – Financial or otherwise: Crisis avoidance During the worst of all weeks in the history of the American stock market, beginning October 6, 2008, one question dominated. Why were government fixes not calming the panic? Answers varied. Some said we lacked persuasive leaders. Others said words don’t carry […]
Crisis Management: Toyota Tylenol and Tiger: Crisis response from the archives A line from the 1962 movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance says, “…When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The legend of Johnson & Johnson’s 1982 Tylenol recall rises like a totem on the crisis management landscape whenever a calamity like Toyota”s surfaces. Everyone knows the […]
Crisis Management: Toyota – the good bad and ugly: Crisis response – from archives What are we to make of what someone called the greatest crisis recall of our time: Toyota’s? This episode is loaded with contradictions for me. For instance, when I learned that not only was the company recalling vehicles, but halting sales and manufacturing […]
Crisis Management: Tony Blair – How to Communicate In a Crisis: Crisis Communications The four terrorist explosions in London in the summer of 2006 sent another chill, but also called forth the one person that Great Britain most wanted in times of crisis at the time: Prime Minister Tony Blair. Now he has moved on, but his […]
Crisis Management: Tom Cruise Shows Businesspeople How Not to Talk to the Media: Crisis Communications – From archives Tom Cruise was dropped by Paramount for eccentric actions that dragged down the profitability of his movies. So, his behavior in 2005 proved to have consequences in spite of his being tops at the box office. Here is what […]
Crisis Management: Tiger Woods – privacy vs coming clean: Crisis decision-making Bad news never gets better with time and just as the clock appeared about to run out on Tiger Woods he issued a new statement admitting more culpability for his behavior. Right before he posted it December 2nd, further tabloid reports of affairs were surfacing along […]
Crisis Management: Tiger Woods – Damage to his Partners: Crisis response Okay, here is how this will probably – probably – play out. Tiger Woods emerges from self-imposed exile in a 60 Minutes type interview in a few months. He says his serial cheating was unconscionable, apologizes to all, and returns to golf. His reputation is forever tarnished but if he brings […]
Crisis Management: Tiger Attack in SF – Zoo response : Crisis response A fatal tiger escape and attack at the San Francisco Zoo in December 2007 put a media bull’s-eye on the zoo. Although a witness said the tiger was taunted and the zoo is making safety improvements, the animal did get out, someone died, and harsh headlines […]
Crisis Management: THIS is how the CEO should relate to reporters: Crisis avoidance (Former Wachovia Bank CEO John Medlin died unexpectedly June 7) While John Medlin was renowned for his conservative profitable leadership, community involvement and broad friendship (I was one of his many tennis partners), he had savvy insights into working with reporters. They’ll be apparent as […]