In his Crisis Guru Commentaries, Jim Lukaszewski provides real answers to real questions about your most critical communications problems and issues.

To submit a question, please direct it by e-mail to crisisguru@e911.com.  Be sure to include your full name, affiliation, address, and telephone number.  All published questions will be identified by title and industry only.  Your confidentiality will be protected.

Question:
 
Dear Crisis Guru:

We’re currently going through a very uncomfortable confrontation with a labor union.  Are there some rules we can use for our communication strategy to reduce the level of confrontation, improve communication, and make those of us who wish to have a more pleasant outcome succeed?

Corporate Communications Specialist

Answer:

Dear Corporate Communications Specialist:

There are very specific steps and strategies to undertake that can set the tone of public and private discussions and debates:

• Eliminate all negative words; they cause misunderstanding and unanswerable questions (and you’ll have to eat every one of them sometime soon).
• Be constructive rather than critical.  Criticism is negative, confusing, and starts fights.
• Talk about moving forward into the future - those who insist on staying in the past will simply lose or die there.

The question to ask is, “Are you a force for yesterday or a force for a better tomorrow?”  The choice is yours - if given the chance, your employees will choose happiness and candor over anger, fear of the unknown, and the regimentation third-party membership requires.

Cordially,

Jim Lukaszewski