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Crisis Preventers

Doing Simple, Sensible, Small Right Things (SSSRT)

Among the most frequent questions I’m asked by both professionals in our field and those they advise (CEOs and other operating officials) is, “Can you tell me what, in your experience, are the greatest crisis preventers?”

This is a quite profound question. Here’s my answer.

The most powerful crisis prevention behaviors involve doing the simple, sensible, small right things (SSSRT):

1. Immediately.
2. As soon as possible.
3. That prevent the creation of critics, victims, and more serious antagonists.
4. That prevent bad outcomes.
5. That reduce contention, friction, confrontation, and conflict.

How powerful are these five simple thoughts? Every one of these concepts, if practiced relentlessly and constructively, will eliminate 25 to 50 expensive, time consuming, embarrassing crisis-generated response, mediation, retrenching, and recovery steps. When we analyze any crisis, on any scale, for after action reports or lessons learned, the most fundamental question is “How could this have been prevented?”

The answer is to do the simple, sensible right things first, and you can detect, deter, and prevent much larger problems.

Take any scenario (at any scale of magnitude), apply these five SSSRT principles, and you will knock most potential crisis situations down to a whimper, or down and out.

Some SSSRT examples:

• Toyota: Take corrective action in the first month rather than the 24th month.
• The Catholic Church: Call the police every time. Apologize now.
• Sub-prime mortgages: Always deal in real money.
• Goldman Sachs: Check with your mother. Would she approve?
• Richard Nixon: Put your hands down at your sides and admit what you did.
• Bill Clinton: You did have sex with that woman, admit it, and stop.
• Dan Rather: You did make it up.
• Tiger Woods, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and so many, many more: Keep your zippers up.
• Exxon Valdez: Have the right trained and qualified persons steering the ship.
• Wall Street: Keep Main Street fixed and working or your life will be miserable.

How many similar situations can you identify SSSRTs for? Let’s start building a list. Just send your comments in when you can.

Toyota on the Right Track?

The latest Toyota ad, “Our Pledge to You,” is out and does show signs that the company is making progress in understanding what it has to do to be forgiven. But, the approach is still too austere and fails to go far enough to make the customer-focused commitment that’s needed.

If Toyota truly wants to achieve the forgiveness it must have to recover (and also foil the critics, confound the media, convert the public policy makers, and disable the bloviators, bellyachers, and back bench bitchers), its strategy needs to include two powerful ingredients:

1. Stop talking about Toyota and what the company is doing, and begin talking from the customers’ point-of-view, entirely. The former approach sounds like (and is a form of) self-forgiveness and problem minimizing. The approach must emphasize what customers can expect, what customers need to do, what the next steps are, and how customer interaction (as small as it might be) is providing meaningful assistance to the company as it resolves the issues it’s facing.

2. Toyota needs to follow the time tested algorithm for obtaining customer, employee, shareholder, and public forgiveness:

Step #1 Candor: Outward recognition, through promptly and continuously verbalized and written public acknowledgement, that a problem exists; that people or groups of people, the environment, or the public trust are affected; and what specifically is (will) be done to remediate the situation.

Step #2 Apology: Verbalized or written statements of personal regret, remorse, and sorrow, acknowledging personal responsibility for having injured, insulted, failed or wronged another, humbly asking for forgiveness in exchange for more appropriate future behavior and to make amends in return.

Step #3 Explanation (no matter how silly, stupid, or embarrassing the problem-causing errors are): Promptly, briefly, and extensively explain why the problem occurred and the known underlying reasons or behaviors that led to the situation (even if there is only partial information). Keep updating the findings.

Step #4 Affirmation: Talk about what you’ve learned from the situation and how it will influence your future present and future behavior. Unconditionally commit to regularly report additional information until it is all out or until public interest has ended.

Step #5 Declaration: An ongoing public commitment and discussion of specific, positive steps to be taken to conclusively address the issues and resolve the situation.

Step #6 Contrition: The continuing verbalization of regret, empathy, sympathy, even embarrassment. Take appropriate responsibility for having allowed the situation to occur in the first place, whether by omission, commission, accident, or negligence.

Step #7 Consultation: Promptly seek help and counsel from “victims,” government, the community of origin, independent observers, and even from your opponents. Involve directly and request the participation of those most affected to help develop more permanent solutions, more acceptable behaviors, and to design principles and approaches that will preclude similar problems from re-occurring. Seek, insist, and propose more oversight, restrictions, regulations, rules, and legislation.

Step #8 Commitment: Publicly set your goals at zero. Zero errors, zero defects, zero dumb decisions, and zero problems. Publicly promise that, to the best of your ability, situations like this will be prevented in the future. Disclose through Web site announcements and dashboards the diversity and intensity of the efforts.

Step #9 Restitution: Find a way to quickly pay the price. Make or require restitution. Go beyond community and victim expectations, and what would be required under normal circumstances to remediate the problem. Do more, talk productively.

The people from Toyota may indeed say they’re doing all of this, but if you read this algorithm structure carefully, they’re doing very little and skipping the really hard parts (the disclosure and the customer voice). The one thing we know for sure about situations like Toyota’s, the company will do every algorithm element – the way it’s presented here – for this nightmare to begin to end and go away. If the company starts sincerely and consciously doing all of these steps immediately, the tides will turn sooner rather than later. The behavior in the algorithm helps employees and those who rely on Toyota to have many more reasons to rally around the company.

Newspaper ads can be a fine gesture, though they often give the impression that more is being done then is actually accomplished because they’re so general and nonspecific. If you want to talk about accomplishments, do dashboards, including your data on customer attitudes and confidence. Talk is cheap. It is performance and action that matter most.

The Toyota Brand Sinking? C’mon

Of the relatively few dumb statements published about Toyota’s current recall troubles—one by Maryann Keller quoted in a Bloomberg story, “People aren’t going to buy Toyotas . . . their image is finished . . . ”—is premature, but silly enough to get a reporter to bite. And here’s another statement, by Brenda Wrigley (chair of the Department of Public Relations at Syracuse University’s School of Public Communications) and quoted by the Associated Press on January 27, 2010, “The story just kind of drags on. That’s just deadly for a reputation. It just spirals into a big situation that’s probably going to have long-term financial impact for the company. Quality was their differentiator and now it’s their Achilles heel.” How about some history?

Jerry Delefamina, a brilliant, Long Island advertising maven of the ’80s and ’90s, told ABC News (and many other news outlets in 1982) that Tylenol would disappear as a brand within a year after the mysterious 1982 Chicago-area cyanide poisonings where seven died, there were copycat cases, which caused a massive recall of the product. The capsules were off the market for six weeks.

In 1986, there was second Tylenol tampering cyanide poisoning, this time in Westchester County, New York that caused one death, another massive recall, and the end of Tylenol capsules over the counter for 25 years.

McNeil Laboratories (the division of Johnson and Johnson that makes Tylenol) and J&J’s handling of the two incidents set the global standard for ethical, open, and disclosive crisis response and public communication for industries, government, and commercial organizations around the world.

Toyota’s response is clearly meeting this global standard. The Toyota brand, like Tylenol, is likely to be stronger as a result of such excellent, open, and responsive corporate behavior.

Negative speculation, which the media loves more than the truth, by so called experts, only serves to underestimate the intelligence, competence, and loyalty of satisfied customers.

When Death Is the Crisis

Operational and Communication Guidelines

One of the most difficult challenges leaders and their communicators face is what to do, what to say, how to behave, and what decisions to make when someone is killed. This problem does arise, all too frequently. Here are some useful guidelines for both operators and communicators:

1. The bigger the market, the less a single death seems to matter unless:

• The death is spectacular.
• The death reflects a pattern of malpractice, malfeasance, omission, negligence, or cover up.

2. Lukaszewski’s first law of adversity and crisis survival is to recognize that neither the government, the new media or news media, politicians, regulators, critics, nor your enemies have the power to defeat you. Defeat is almost always caused by uninformed or distracted bosses, insider leaks (from management or leadership, or especially from attorneys), well meaning friends and peers, or relatives.

3. Managing the victims and their survivors is 95 percent of your success. Anything less than a full throated communication and operational effort leaves the perpetrator vulnerable. Victim management is a long-term scenario. It can go well beyond settlement or even the end of litigation.

4. If you want to affect public opinion effectively, you have to influence employee opinion effectively, first. External communication strategies only work when there is a base in place that understands, supports, advocates, or remains neutral.

5. There is a pattern for successfully obtaining forgiveness.

6. There is a pattern for making your own problems worse.

7. There is a pattern to the power victims will have over you.

8. Focus on promptly settling these matters as aggressively, compassionately, and positively as possible.

9. Delay, stalling, timidity, and hesitation are the ingredients of failure. Silence is toxic to the perpetrator.

10. Avoid:

• Speaking for others
• Disparaging or discrediting
• All negative words and language
• Metaphors, paraphrases, or analogies
• Creating new critics or enemies
• Using old information to justify or forgive today's actions
• Relying on corporate or legal assumptions rather than the realities victims and their survivors/families believe they are actually facing.
• Taking any of this personally (stay at altitude)
• Testosterosis
• Whining

11. Be compassionate, extremely empathetic, open, responsive, transparent, truthful, candid, and engaging. Get to a place where you could consider apologizing.

12. Answer all the questions. For every question you skip, someone makes up an answer that you are going to wind up eating and owning.

What’s Next for Tiger Woods

I know you’re tired of hearing this stuff, but I couldn’t resist. Tiger and his troubles fit an unmistakable pattern.

His life will increasing resemble being at war—long periods of boring quiet and inattention punctuated by explosive, disclosive, sometimes disturbing events. What do we know for sure?

1. He'll be back bigger than ever, if he plays the way he has. We love to celebrify criminals and fallen celebrities who strive to rehabilitate and return. (Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy is advertising Gold on national television.)
2. A whole new Tiger’s Failures industry has been born, “What did Tiger really do?” “What did Elin use the golf club for?” “Tiger’s girls” “Who’s Tiger putting now?” This will “dog” him for the rest of his professional life. He won’t make a dime from it. Many, many show business, sports, political, and business leaders (especially those who have failed gigantically or miserably) become highly visible and famous due to the magnitude of their mistakes or misfortunes. We love the recovering. They don’t even have to be repentant.
3. The worst has yet to be disclosed.

What Would Tiger’s Dad Have Done?

Perhaps the way to approach the state of Tiger Wood’s affairs is to ask the question, “What would his dad, the architect of his life, do?” How would Tiger’s father analyze what Tiger has done thus far? Using Tiger Woods’ December 2, 2009 statement (on http://www.tigerwoods.com/), let’s walk through his “comments on current events” through the eyes of someone who really cared about him.

1. “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart.”

Comment: What are the transgressions? The first rule of apology is that the admission must contain meaningful specificity.

2. “I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.”

Comment: What are those values, Tiger? Benjamin Franklin had 13 values, ranging from frugality to humility. How do we know what your values really are without specifying which ones you transgressed?

3. “I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect.”

Comment: What are those faults, Tiger? What are the imperfections to which you refer?

Note: We’re only three sentences into Mr. Woods’ comments and already there are a dozen questions.

4. “I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family.”

Comment: The problem is that you’ve opened the doors by talking about these things. If you really wanted to be helpful, you would outline what one or two of those personal failings happen to be.

5. “Those feelings should be shared by us alone.”

Comment: Why? You’re a brand. Brands are owned by those who trust, use, and benefit from them. It is the brand owners who determine what is private and what isn’t.

6. “Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means.”

Comment: You’ve lived in a highly positive cocoon for much of your life. This tends to make you a virgin when it comes to operating in a real world situation. There is nothing more fascinating to the news media than deflowering someone who lives by the media, but who feels they shouldn’t have to die by similar fashion. Welcome to the real world.

7. “For the last week, my family and I have been hounded to expose intimate details of our personal lives.”

Comment: From the perspective of most of us, you live in the protective environment of what appears to be a wonderful home, a gated community and private property, where you’re pretty insulated from “hounding” by anyone. This is classic arrogant, frat boy whining.

8. “The stories in particular that physical violence played any role in the car accident were utterly false and malicious.”

Comment: Now you tell us. How do we know? We need more information, because of how much you’ve already not told us.

9. “Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.”

Comment: Yes, Tiger, it’s only her forgiveness that matters. And it sounds as though you’ve got a ways to go to achieve that.

10. “But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy.”

Comment: There is no saint like a reformed sinner. Mr. Woods has, apparently, sinned mightily and now asks that it remain covered up until he can somehow manage its affects.

11. “I realize there are some who don't share my view on that.”

Comment: Like most of us, Tiger, when you do stupid things you get dumb visibility.

12. “But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one's own family.”

Comment: There’s that comment about virtue again. What are the virtues we’re talking about? The virtue must mean, “Leave me alone when I want to be left alone.”

13. “Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions.”

Comment: When you’re a public person and, more importantly, a brand, every aspect of your existence is open to explanation, debate, and questioning.

14. “Whatever regrets I have about letting my family down have been shared with and felt by us alone.”

Comment: There’s a book in there somewhere, by someone.

15. “I have given this a lot of reflection and thought and I believe that there is a point at which I must stick to that principle even though it's difficult.”

Comment: What is that principle? How has sticking to that principle helped you so far?

16. “I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves.”

Comment: Again, Tiger, what does this mean, specifically? What behaviors will you change? What about your virtues and values needs to be repaired? What are the lessons you’ve learned that you will apply in this circumstance? In the forgiveness game, you need to acknowledge, specifically, what the faults and errors were.

17. “For all of those who have supported me over the years, I offer my profound apology.”

Comment: What about the rest of us? Those of us who didn’t get to come to the cocktail parties or couldn’t afford to be in the galleries when you were playing, but who admire you just as much? What’s the purpose of limiting your apology to those who know you? When you’re a brand, you need to apologize to the entire universe that your brand affects.

The formula for Tiger Woods, which will still work, is a profound, humble, positive, open, sincere, and conditionless public apology by him, in person, along with an explanation for the questions he’s already raised.

Most public sinners wind up on 60 Minutes talking to Mr. Kroft, the show’s angel of righteousness (prophylactic humiliation).

Maybe this time, instead of the usual cast of 60 Minutes, they should get Frank Deford, who actually knows something about sports and celebrities to conduct the interview. We all look forward to it and to the end of Tiger’s troubles.

Tiger’s Troubles

He Can Putt 50 Yards But Stumbles, Fumbles, Mumbles, and Bumbles a Simple Direct Apology

What should Tiger Woods really have done?

Within the first 30 to 45 minutes of the incident occurring, he should have given the police a statement and had the police give it out to the public:

"About an hour ago, following an intense argument about a family matter, and upset, I angrily drove my SUV out of my driveway, lost control of the vehicle—apparently hitting a fire hydrant, perhaps a couple of parked cars, and ultimately a tree across the street from my driveway. The incident happened pretty fast, and I got a little banged up. Within seconds of the crash, my wife, Elin, was outside of my SUV breaking a window to help get me out of the vehicle.

This is a silly, needless, three-minute incident, all my fault, which will cause my family and those who know me some brief anguish and public exposure. For that I am profoundly sorry.

I will do whatever the police instruct and humbly ask the forgiveness of my family and neighbors for the disruption I’ve caused in their lives this evening."

Such an initial statement would create four things that, in hindsight, Mr. Woods seems to think he is owed:

1. Some semblance of privacy
2. Being able to avoid the embarrassing speculation of others and moderate media frenzy that occurred
3. The ability to control his personal circumstances
4. His integrity and brand value largely intact

There has yet to be a true apology from Mr. Woods and, indeed, there may never be one revealed publicly.

The most constructive structure for apology I’ve seen is in The Five Languages of Apology: How to Experience Healing in All Your Relationships, a book by Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas. Here, with some paraphrasing and modification based on my experiences, are the ingredients of the perfect apology:

1. Regret (acknowledgment): A verbal acknowledgement by the perpetrator that their wrongful behavior caused unnecessary pain, suffering, and hurt that identifies, specifically, what action or behavior is responsible for the pain.
2. Accepting Responsibility (declaration): An unconditional declarative statement by the perpetrator recognizing their wrongful behavior and acknowledging that there is no excuse for the behavior.
3. Restitution (penance): An offer of help or assistance to victims, by the perpetrator; action beyond the words “I’m sorry”; and conduct that assumes the responsibility to make the situation right.
4. Repentance (humility): Language by the perpetrator acknowledging that this behavior caused pain and suffering for which he/she is genuinely sorry; language by the perpetrator recognizing that serious, unnecessary harm and emotional damage was caused.
5. Direct Forgiveness Request: “I was wrong, I hurt you, and I ask you to forgive me.”

Do apologies matter? Twenty-nine states seem to think so. These states have enacted legislation exempting voluntary expressions of regret and apology at traffic accidents from being considered by juries when setting auto liability damages. Legislation is pending in Congress to mitigate the impact of liability on malpractice insurance claims against doctors and medical personnel who apologize immediately, or very quickly, and sincerely.

The hard part of apologizing is the admission of having done something hurtful, damaging, or wrong and requesting forgiveness. In practice, skip even one step and you fail to convince anyone of your sincerity or integrity.

My immediate advice to Mr. Woods:

1. Get better legal counsel; get better communications counsel (they are very different disciplines); then listen up.
2. Brands (which is what you have intended to be) have no rights to privacy. There are owned by the publics who purchase and trust them.
3. Abject, humble, meaningful, and sincere words of apology—personally delivered—generate enormous public sympathy. The single most powerful benefit of this behavior is that the media hate it and generally won’t cover it, for long.

Remember the rules for forgiveness:

1. Silence is toxic.
2. Candor builds trust.
3. Openness calms the masses.
4. Apology is the atomic energy of empathy for your believers, followers, and wannabes; disables the media; and disempowers attorneys.
5. Public repentance is required. Some extraordinary act of generosity affecting a wide variety of people and places is called for, something that preferably really hurts.

In my next blog post, I’ll take Mr. Wood’s most recent statement and specifically, sentence by sentence, describe what he should have done.

If you’re interested in reading more about apology, visit Who's Sorry Now: The Growing Art of the Apology.

Terrorist Trials in New York, a Tragic Decision

The decision by US Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, cheered on by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and members of the media to stage terrorist trials in New York City reflects the present culture of leadership training our society fosters in its government leaders, business leaders, even legal and religious leadership. They are taught to overwhelm, defeat, and vanquish. Winning is never enough. True leaders have to hold the defeated up for public ridicule, prophylactic humiliation, then strut their heads around on a stick. How can this be seen as any kind of propaganda victory for America?

In the process, while a few public officials, aggressive prosecutors, plaintiff attorneys and a 24/7 bloviator-driven media that, with unfairness and imbalance, plus the all bull, all bias boys and girls, enjoy focusing on all the negativity about America the spectacle will generate . . . the rest of us will be held hostage to the needless circus while the terrorists as civilian criminals have a global platform to hate us and spit on us for months, maybe years.

We have very effective military tribunals to try war criminals. These tribunals take place in less significant locations under circumstances that befit the crimes. Who is clamoring for show trials and, in the process, baiting and needlessly focusing the destructive energies of thousands, perhaps millions of militant America haters? These trials will be seen for what they are, a victory of testosterosis over justice.

What Are the Attributes of the Ethical Executive?

For some time now, I’ve been conducting my own completely unscientific “poll” of senior advisors, asking them, from their experience, to provide up to 10 attributes of executives with integrity. The question I asked was, “What are the characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes of the ethical executive?” I asked each individual for 10 examples. Here’s the list from a superstar mid-30s female:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Fairness
• Confidence
• Vision
• Ability to view issues through multiple lenses
• Ability to flex communication styles for critical conversations
• Ability to take feedback
• Appreciation/gratitude
• Responsiveness

Then there’s this from a late 40s top-notch consultant:

• Truthful
• Courageous
• Honest
• Respectful
• Compassionate
• Just
• Humble
• Wise
• Responsible
• Reliable

Here’s the list from a Ph.D. college professor:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Accuracy
• Transparency
• Accountability
• Fair
• Responsible
• Loyalty
• Truthful
• Professional

And, how about this from a late 50s senior agency counselor:

• Honesty
• Moral understanding and conviction
• Uncompromising (re: established standards)
• Versed in acceptable social norms
• Fair
• Unwilling to accept double standards
• Willing to share information (transparent)
• Leads by example
• Believable
• Mature value structure
• Teacher/ethical evangelist

So far, honesty and truthfulness appear on three out of the four lists. Ultimately, I think I’d like to begin creating a roster of executives who meet a great proportion of these attributes, because we only tend to hear about those who succeed or fail in spectacular ways.

My experience is that there are very few lessons to learn from those who fail. The models we need are those who have consistently demonstrated the qualities of ethical behavior, integrity, and credibility as defined by those around them.

What’s your list? Who are your candidates?

Send these to me and I’ll publish them. We’ll create a matrix of ethical executive expectations, and then, the next step will be to ask for nominations of individuals who manage and lead in the space called “integrity.”