Managing Mangled Moments

The word “embarrassing” pops up a lot in headlines about this year’s presidential campaign.  There are enough gaffes, awkward moments and misstatements to fill a book on “How not to get elected.” For instance, there was:

 Mitt Romney’s comment that he likes to fire people.

Or when a top Romney advisor accidentally spoke the unintended truth about the campaign changing direction after the primaries, resulting in the now famous Etch-A-Sketch comment. 

Who can forget Texas Governor Rick Perry forgetting the names of the three federal departments he’d eliminate.

And there was President Obama’s statement about the Supreme Court’s limit of authority, a statement that was softly retracted after confusing attempts to clarify.

So, there seems to be plenty of ways candidates, or anyone working in a public environment, can mess up. The question isn’t so much how did the faux pas happen, but how a person can recover, putting the awkward moment in the rearview mirror. 

First, get used to the notion mistakes will happen. It’s a human trait. Next, have a survival plan. Before continuing down the campaign trail, create a protocol — or triage — for assessing how serious the situation is and what remedies are best. And, develop the discipline to carry out the recovery steps quickly. 

The first part of the plan should be realizing what it is a speaker can do in the seconds after a misstep. If we can borrow a page from the world of music, then the advice of Noa Kageyama may apply. He’s a performance psychologist and Juilliard faculty member who has made a study of how musicians may recover from a mistake during a performance, What he says about playing music might be applied to delivering a speech.

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Creating a Crisis with No Upside

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has built a reputation for enlisting volunteers and corporate partners to combat breast cancer. The charitable organization nicked that reputation this week in a baffling self-created crisis.

Komen announced early in the week it would stop funding breast cancer screenings by Planned Parenthood. At first, Komen said the cut-off resulted because of a new policy not to fund organizations under investigation. Later, top Komen officials said there was a shift in funding strategy. By week's end, after angry outcries from women's groups, doctors and influential senators in Congress, Komen backtracked on its decision.

In one short week, Komen guaranteed itself a place as a case study in communications textbooks of what not to do to avoid creating a crisis.

After Komen made its announcement, critics used social media to denounce the decision as bowing to political pressure by anti-abortion forces, which have conducted a campaign, aided by Congressional Republicans, to dry up public and private funding for Planned Parenthood. 

Planned Parenthood says abortions account for 5 percent of its health care activities, which include screening low-income women for breast and cervical cancer. Women's advocates note Planned Parenthood is often the only place where poor women can obtain any form of preventive health care.

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Twitter in a Pinch

Joe Paterno's son dealt with the crush of media inquiries following the death of his legendary father over the weekend by sending a tweet. No media filters. No time delay. Just an efficient, effortless and graceful shout-out to the world.

Twitter has emerged as a go-to tool for the news media and crisis communicators. You can tweet from a smartphone or tablet. It's fast. It's direct. And it demands careful word choices to make your point in 140 characters.

Media outlets and individual reporters use Twitter to alert people to breaking news and provide updates. It might be an earthquake or a presidential debate. You can follow the tweets and know what's going on and what's being said in real time.

The same rapid response is essential in crisis communications. Say there is an accident with environmental impacts. Tweets can demonstrate a business is on top of the situation by communicating valuable, accurate information in real time to employees, neighbors, emergency responders and news reporters. Questions can be posed and answered when concerns are at a peak.

Twitter can work in tandem with other social media platforms such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube to provide more information, images and video. The immediacy of the information can allay fears and focus attention on remaining serious problems. Twitter can also team up with a website to direct viewers to sources of additional, in-depth information.

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When to Blow Your Own Whistle

Many organizations take a responsible course and blow their own whistle on a mistake or misconduct. But they aren't always sure whether to go public with their self-reported problems.

It is an understandable dilemma. Why rock the boat unnecessarily?

However, the downside of not publicly disclosing mistakes or misconduct can be a serious erosion of trust and long-term damage to a brand or reputation.

There is no clear-cut formula of what is right. Organizations that self-report are doing the right thing. The question is — does the right thing in their circumstances include advising their customers, stakeholders and employees? More often than not, answer is yes.

The risk is too great that the story will break, especially if the misconduct involves criminal acts or matters that will eventually be public — in which case the organization must to deal with the story in a reactive mode. The failure to disclose can be viewed suspiciously, perhaps even as an attempt to cover up unflattering facts.

Public relations professionals with experience in crisis communication can provide invaluable assistance in helping an organization weigh the pros and cons of proactive and reactive media responses. If a PR pro is doing his or her job, the number one objective will be actions that preserve – or enhance – the organization's reputation.

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Seeing Crisis as a Teachable Moment

McDonald's media relations director advises getting out of the bunker and viewing a crisis as an opportunity to educate your audience.]Too many corporate officials and PR professionals recoil in the face of a crisis. The director of media relations for McDonald's, who is no stranger to crisis, sees it as an opportunity "to educate."

To earn a teachable moment, Danya Proud tells Ragan's PR Daily, you must "acknowledge you're not perfect."

"If you made a mistake," Proud says, "own up to it. Let people know you're listening to them."

The temptation many succumb to when facing a crisis is to dissemble or head for the bunker, hoping the storm will blow over.

Proud's advice: "A crisis can be an opportunity to set the record straight. I seize every opportunity to educate."

"It's not about what you want to say," Proud adds. “It's about what your audience wants to hear."

Self-serving, indulgent and sluggish responses won't cut it. Proud notes there are people prowling the Internet looking for an excuse to criticize. Don't give them an excuse to pounce on you, she says.

"Gone are the days when you can procrastinate about what you're saying," according to Proud. "You have a responsibility to get back to people."

That's your teachable moment.

A Crisis Full Circle

Helping clients deal with communications crises is a significant part of my professional work. A letter I received recently reminded me just how long I have been handling them.

Forty years ago on October 1, my news editor at the Port Angeles Evening News scrambled me to the scene of a downtown natural gas explosion that rocked Haguewood's Cafe, a popular restaurant known for its large, luscious cinnamon rolls (I ate one every Saturday).

Dozens of people were injured and at least one died in what looked afterward like a war zone, with fire jetting into the air and debris littered everywhere.

For young reporters like me, such incidents were exciting and dangerous —especially in a smaller town, where breaking news wasn't commonplace.

Even though interviewing eyewitnesses and injured victims gave me an adrenalin rush at the time, the incident passed from my memory over time. Recently, I received a letter from one of the victims, who at the time was a 16-year-old high school student with the bad luck of hanging out in the restaurant when the explosion occurred.

"I was blown back over my chair and landed face down," he wrote. "I felt the building raining down and could hear it and the sounds of people screaming. When I stood up, the dust was choking and the only thing I could see was the light from the gas station across the street. I could hear the cries and screams in the darkness, but couldn't help anyone and had no idea what just happened."

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What the “L” to do During the Next Disaster

In the past month we’ve watched American communities endure crippling storms, flooding, tornados, earthquakes and wildfires. And, of course, we took note of the man-made disasters of September 11, 2001.

Most large organizations have some type of business continuation plan. Smaller businesses are a different story. According to the website Small Business CEO, “62 percent of surveyed small businesses do not have an emergency plan in place.”

You do have a plan? If not, check out preparedness web sites such as www.ready.gov.

Here are a few basic steps a business can take to ensure it can continue its business, and communicate effectively, in the aftermath of a critical event.

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Pounding Out Dents in Your Reputation

George Bernard Shaw wrote, "My reputation grows with every failure." That may have worked for Shaw, but not for the rest of us. Failure usually puts a dent in our reputation.

Pounding out that dent can be hard, unremitting work. But hard work alone won't get the job done. It also has to be honest work.

The greatest barrier to reputation restoration is an unwillingness by individuals and organizations to admit they made a mistake.

The next greatest barrier is the lack of courage to fix the mistake, so it doesn't recur.

Reputations accrue sometimes undeservedly, and they can be lost just as capriciously. In a world spinning without an axis, it shouldn't take a wise person long to figure out your reputation demands some quality personal attention.

What others think about you matters, especially when you face a crisis of some sort. How you react, more than what you did, often determines ultimate public perception. Many reputations soar when actions are taken in advance of a crisis to avoid a crisis – especially when those actions put customers and community first by enhancing safety or protecting the environment.

We all experience failure at some point. More people and organizations should experience the toil of pounding out the dents in their reputation caused by that failure. Sincere pounding will go a long ways toward having people once again admire your fender.

Getting Off to a Good Start With New Clients

Starting a relationship with a new client, or launching a new project for an old, repeat customer, is a lot like dating. At first, groping in the dark may yield some quick, mutually satisfactory results. But eventually roles and expectations must be expressed if the relationship is to be sustained and a success.

Try this check-off list as work begins for a new client:

1. What does the client really want?

The client may say it wants lots of positive stories in the media. Determine why. Selling product may be one simple reason. Or there may be deeper, more complicated, unspoken reasons to consider – legal, mergers, employment issues, for instance? The answer may change your recommended strategies.

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Save the Lipstick

What do you do if Moammar Gadhafi calls asking for help to spruce up his image? Unless you are prepared to tell him to his face to give up being a dictator, you should decline the opportunity.

Monitor Group, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, finds itself in the embarrassing situation of explaining why it accepted the assignment of a Gadhafi makeover.

The truth is too many public relations firms sign up for work that demands extreme candor without ever intending to be candid with their client. That's unfortunate and probably unprofessional.

Assisting an organization or individual in managing their reputation requires a accurate assessment of public perceptions and a realistic set of the client's vulnerabilities.

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